Coco

4 Track Memories of Summer

If you would have asked me What are the Sounds of Summer as I child I could easily tell you…Summer is the sounds of waves crashing at the beach. Sand between toes as its squelched in each step along the shoreline. The slopping sounds of sandcastles being built as shovels and pails dug into muddy sand crab filled wet sand. As seagulls cawed and flew above the glistening sun kissed waters every now and then swooping down to feast on the summer beach goers delectables. The sounds of beach balls and volley balls smacked to and fro as sweat dripped brows and glistening beach bodies jostled in glowing Athenian Olympiad style.  

In adolescence Summer sounded like splashing water and children laughing as water sprinkles droplets of fun filled memories on their skin. Summer sounded like meat grilling and sizzling on a charcoal grill. That smokey charbroiled burger slapped between to fluffy buns piled with crisp and crunchy toppings. As feet slapped the pavement circling the outside of the pool to climb the ping, pong, bong, long diving board. A cannon ball diver tucks in legs and holds firm as the booming waters disseminate across the pool grounds and all occupants of the pool. 

During teenage rebellion summer sounded like juicy watermelon slurped between luscious lip glossed lips. It was long car rides singing Bohemian Rhapsody’s whilst playing air guitar. Readying to display new slinky two-piece swimsuits to ogling crowds of on lookers, as siblings snap and whip towels at each other.  The sounds of aerosol sprayed sun block and lathered lotions slapped on the skin. The smells of coconut and tropical sweets lingered on perfumed pores. It was youthful beauty at its peak and I can still hear the taut arrogance playing on the strings of platitude. 

Here in my middle age summer sounds like a fan blowing cool air and the humming of the air conditioner on full blast. The sounds of the front room door opening and closing as my children turn into Mermen swimming like fish in the community pool in front of my door. The sloshings of wet clothes and dripping water drops that fall under carpeted feet. The cracking open of aluminum cans of soda. The sounds of refreshment escapes their lips in an AHHHH. Squished fresh lemons into a glass of water and clanking spoons of sugar stirred into thirst quenching lemonade. The greatest sounds of summer are the sweet smiles and laughter that bring life joy and meaning. 

Destitute

I hang my thoughts of grief from the tress of trust 

paper and pen my only solace in this forest of loneliness 

were do these thoughts come from that shadow the light 

my toes are colder than a fresh dead corpse on a morticians table 

I can feel nothing and everything ubiquitously as I hover in thought

Every whip of the lash of words spoken in contempt burn and bleed 

they are carved into my flesh like whittled transgression memories 

every second of thought is torture – a flash flood of waterlogged tears 

There is no escape from this marred inheritance 

I am charred

Explosive 

Corruptible

Demolished 

hope

Extinguished and set a blaze in a looping infinity of chaos

My screams of torment are the winds that cool your face in summer 

My agony the lemonade you drink to quench the thirst of uncertainty 

Hold me captive, keep me secluded, latch the chains, confine, and gag me 

These binding constrictive harpooned deceptions 

will never be enough to snuff out my light – 

my truth –

my love – 

my forgiveness – 

my strength to keep reaching for unity a togetherness that brings you fear 

drops you to your knees revealing your ignorance and privilege 

Summer Love of 1996

Summer sunsets have faded like blue jeans

along with the love that we shared 

Sunbeams floating on the ocean swallowing 

this day revealing the mirage of our love  

My closed eyelids glow a grapefruit hue

as memories flaunt summer bodies entwined 

Eyes wide open blink more water into 

this sea that stands between us

Fairytales are rarely true but these 

lucid dreams of true love felt so real

I should have heeded the warning and waning whales 

of mermaid’s captive as they sang out to me 

I sit on the rocks that kiss the shore, watch 

as they ebb and flow my tide of longing

Swept away, pulled under, left to drown 

my heart sinks into the abyss of unseen fathoms  

They all ask me “why can’t you just be happy?” 

Because I don’t know what happiness is — 

I don’t know how to hold it like a newborn babe 

without the fear of all the ways I will disappoint as a parent

I don’t know how to taste it like fresh fruit in summer 

without knowing when it’s gone, it’s just gone no other fruit will taste the same

I don’t know how to wrap myself in it like a new lover’s embrace

without thinking about how many others have felt this warmth – I’m no one special

I don’t know how to breathe it into me like the scent of fresh cut flowers 

without realizing that each petal will wither and die, to be tossed in the trash 

I don’t know how to look at it as butterfly wings flittering by 

without contemplating how fleeting a life is lived and morphs into death

I don’t know how to drink it in like a glass of Screaming Eagle Cabernet  

without tasting tannins of sediment that tell me who I am

I don’t know how to speak a language I never learned…