Last Summer

Last summer, I was very cold. I had the sun to warm me and my skin burned often but not so red that it hurt. I would lay under the sun on the beach and close my eyes. My eyelids would make tie dye motions with the colors of the sun and fire and sometimes rain under my eyelids like a light show. It’s the last thing I saw before I fell asleep. I was cold in my dream. It was always dark but I could still see the red and yellow and sometimes blue. I was alone but I didn’t want to be. There was laughter and splashing and shuffling of feet in the sand around me. And I woke and it was suddenly October and you were taking me on dates and feeling my hand and angrily kissing me after fights. And behind my eyelids I watched the leaves fall on the wet cement and I saw my reflection, my sleeping reflection. Until I woke and it was November and I wasn’t so cold because you left a few times, and I left but you came back like I hoped. And you didn’t just feel my hand because you didn’t like it, but you felt my back. And I felt yours and my hand moved well along the bones of your shoulder and the muscle of your back. I imagined this meant we worked well together and you must have too because you thought you were falling in love with me, and I thought I must be, too. And laying on a small mattress under blankets it was chilly but I slept well behind my blue eyelids, and there were no rays of sunshine or sand in my toes because when I woke, it was January, and I’d never felt so warm between your arms and your i love you’s. Your skin felt so warm, and I hoped your heart did, too.