summer died in dampness

“summer died in dampness,” my dad once said, it has stuck with me.

Summer died in dampness. I fear I am just as dull and lifeless as the monochrome landscape, though my head is overgrown with vines and an old gnarled orange tree wraps around my alabaster bones. The same bones that navigate the dripping grass against my will, I suppose they learned to think for themselves, or maybe they soaked up the citrus; maybe they did so in the same ravenous way that I wish I had soaked up August. If only I devoured it carefully, showed my yearning to taste every last bit of the chlorine and the bats and the bitter tea and the wool. I envy those bones. The bones that have kept me steady when my mind collapsed, their ivory consistency. Though I’ll stop myself from blaming my mind �" could it have been different, what with the vines?