Summer if you leave...

I'll never love again.
I'll stay inside on lovely days,
listening only to music in
minor chords.
I'll kiss with my mouth closed
and my hands in my pockets.
Summer if you love me,
you won't leave me.

Don't say you're coming back.
I can't stand the games you play.
The way you sneak away every
autumnal equinox, just when
I've found perfect balance.

For some reason it's always colder
without you. Grayer. Darker.
I don't think I can make it through
this winter without you. I'm
NOT being melodramatic.

Winter is a terrible lover.
His hugs are suffocating
and his kisses bitter
and biting.
I'll be here, wrapping myself in layers
just to look unappealing to him,
while you sleep on beaches in some
other hemisphere.

Summer I won't let you leave.
I've left out bottles and jars to trap
your toes.
I have the greenest leaf in the world
thumb-tacked to my wall.
You wouldn't leave
without it, would you?

I know I'm not your only lover
but no one knows you like I do.
Remember building sand forts
to barricade the ocean from our shores?
Remember naming the rocks deep
in the woods of my backyard, collecting
moss from trees as carpeting?
Remember jugged wine, BB guns,
and the best friends I'll ever have?

I know you can't stay.
I'd probably get sick of you anyway.
Just promise you'll visit sometimes.
Poke your heart through the clouds,
melt the snow when you can.

I'll look for you in flower shops
and travel agency billboards.
I'll smell you in designer perfumes
and mexican beer.
I'll feel you any morning I wake
up without an alarm,
just the warm caress of light
on the side of my face.