in july

It is never the big moments of summer that I remember.

July hits us. July hits us, and it is too hot to do anything besides play with the memories of May and June, and wonder what is left to celebrate. 

Why do we hold on so tightly to everything? 

It is July of 2012. It is midnight, the windows are down, and we are driving through the neighbourhood we both grew up in. 

July in suburbia, and the world is still living. My head on his shoulder.

This is it, I tell myself. This is it. 

He opens his car door. I love you, he says. But promise me you won’t say it often.

We can’t throw around words like these.

I wasn’t planning on saying it back, but I don’t tell him this.

They’ll teach you that men only love the girls who feel like they need them.

In July of 2020, he is driving, and takes the long way home.

It is still midnight, the windows are still down, and the highway lights and evergreens and abandoned buildings are the only things moving past us.

My head on his shoulder. I tell myself that this is it. This is it. 

And on our second date of summer, he makes a list.

Honest. Refreshing. And your eyes. 

I am thankful he didn’t listen to my shortcut.  

In July of 2022, I am sitting on my couch. My lipstick tastes like watermelon.

I am just a summer body, I tell them. I am his body for the summer, and we are a dream. 

We will always be a dream. 

She asks me who I am trying to convince. And she tells me that this is taking the easy way out again. 

But then I am met as an object, and wonder what I have done to attract those who feel as though my aloofness will fill them in a way.

It is all an act, I want to tell them. It is all an act.

I don’t think we were ever meant to be anything more in July, I’ve decided. Only understood.