speak its name

Almost five am and there's a window open in my bedroom. There's a cool breeze and the sounds of the city and the trees and the birds makes it perfect, and here I am lying on my back, staring at the lights and the shadows playing across the ceiling, wishing this moment--this perfect evening in late spring, the breeze--would last forever. Smiling, letting my mind wander, thinking about everything and nothing.

Six months since I saw her last. That puts it around late autumn when the leaves were turning, and she was wearing a scarf and a hat and a jacket, and we were meeting up in Wallingford, where the trees were so beautiful, and rustled not unlike tonight, but it wasn't spring then. It was cooler, then. We walked hand in hand, and she never even told me she was leaving. But she looked like autumn looks, not cold, but about to leave, and the winds are getting sharper and the days get shorter and shorter. And while she was wearing that little knit cap and that pretty scarf, there was that distance there, even if she's beautiful wearing it. I can't run my hands through her hair, or kiss her on the neck and leave a mark, like she tells me she wants me to.

But it's been six months now and I've stopped wishing she were here. She's an autumn girl, now, in her scarf and hat and jacket and that distant smile, with those cryptic words about the seasons changing and the leaves falling. And it's spring, and everyone is so beautiful in spring, and I'm still drunk on the flowers and the trees even as they fade into their summer greens. It's spring and she's an autumn girl and right now, I'm just happy with the late spring melody of the city. I've reserved the spring for myself.

My eyes drift shut, and tonight I don't hear the wind whispering her name.