“Dear August, this is goodbye,
For another year we say au revoir,
I will miss you and your cicadas’ song…
Your swallows’ dance will always belong
To the sweetness of my heart’s imagination
That I will reach for so to avoid the collision
Of rain and cold that always ends in frustration.”
Ana
“The heat keeps this page blank…
Even the ones who hide in the shadows
Can’t escape,
So my words are lost to the space
Between wishes and reality,
A hopelessness I can’t shake.
The void has always been welcoming
But I am no longer blooming,
I am ceasing with the leaves,
Waiting for autumn so we can breathe.
But the fall is yet to come
As I lay awake through the night,
Knowing I can’t wish time away
Hoping the timing of life will be right.
So I, defeated, linger in the heatwave
Knowing I’m still not good at surfing,
As I fall in a daze of remembering how a wave
Could turn butterflies for a stomach in its wake…”
Ana
“The heat brings back
The cicada’s song with it,
As I hide in the shadows,
I listen to their song
For I’ve missed it all year long.
There’s something about it
That feels like home –
Funny, isn’t it,
How sounds bring back memories
Of past lovers and other miseries?
But cicadas’ song, to me,
Solely means peace,
Heat, and laying low,
A pinch of creativity
Struck by a genius blow.
I feel at ease –
One more thing funny
Coming from me, –
But I do, it’s true,
So I let myself be
In this rare occasion
When I can finally breath
Along with the cicadas’ song
Playing outside my window…”
Ana
“I try to survive the heat,
As another month comes to an end –
Goodbye, July, you have been a neat
Case of daydreaming that knows no end.
Dear August, we meet again.
I’m busy as always, unlike most;
Perhaps one year I will gain
The pleasure to, by your sun, get stained.
For now, I will solely meet your moon,
Telling her the stories that healed the wound
That, in my heart, for years had been growing,
For missing his name in a tapestry I kept on weaving…”
Ana
“Under the burning sun,
My body feels heavy,
My sight is blurry,
My mind is unsteady.
There’s something in the air,
Like I’m waiting on some edge
Of a cliff, with no breeze to carry
The thoughts that make me feel weary.
Cicadas’ play their summer song,
A tune for which I longed for too long,
Striking the chord of memory in me,
Playing the past like a symphony.
And, just like so, I linger,
As the heat remains tricky,
Unable to find a sprinkler
To stop me from daydreaming…”
Ana
“Lights flickering on and off,
Can you tell the secrets they are telling?
Little fireflies in the night sky,
Telling stories in front of our eyes.
Fireflies know all the secrets lovers
Keep, from each other in the Summer,
That later become wishes whispered
Upon every star in the dead of Winter.
But, in my room, the light still flickers,
On and off, on and off,
From the candle that keeps me company
All year long, keeping my secrets as it flickers
On and off, on and off…”
Ana
“The Summer heat burns my skin
As the sunlight blazes my eyes,
But my heart remains unfazed
By the clear baby blue sky.
It has been a while since my spirits have been high,
Too tired to fight the inconvenience,
Nowadays, I confess, I don’t even cry –
Perhaps I got used to the emptiness in the dead of the night.
Days shall always go by, one after the other,
As I learn to get thicker skin,
Even when the light is dim,
Watching my band aids falling off, one after the other…”
Ana
“Calendars count our days,
Clocks tick our hours,
And I am a Spring grain of sand
That has fallen from your sandcastle.
Too soon for Summer to come and grant us a do over,
No restart in sight for a seed that has been planted
Where it is only going to perish
Unable to find a sunbeam to cherish.
What must cease, its end will meet,
Better sooner than later, believe me;
Fire starters burst from within,
Leaving no air for us to breathe in.
So count your days but keep on moving,
Fight the stagnant clock but count your blessings,
For seasons change with or without us noticing,
And soon, stronger sandcastles, we will be building.”
Ana
“Summer, I bid you goodbye,
As I’m left unguarded at sunrise;
I hope to see you one next time,
Perhaps, by then, we’ll see eye to eye.
Silly it is to envy your shine,
When I too can learn to rise,
But I lack the talent to believe the rhymes
I fervently write night after night.
The lingering question, poet or fraud?,
Leaves me wondering if I’m nothing at all;
Just a falling leaf, yellow with the heat,
That no one can nor wants to save from it.
The days shall come and go,
With Autumn I’ll learn to let go,
Alone, but watching every new sunrise,
Dear Summer, I bid you goodbye…”
Ana
“A strange feeling falls, at sunset,
Over me, when I lay down to rest;
Maybe it’s caused by the summer heat
Or by the expectations I can’t meet.
Time flies and flies away from me
As I struggle to find the meaning
Behind everything and anything
That, like waves, sways in and out of reach.
I’ve been trying to surrender
To the fact there’s no redemption
Arc, waiting ahead, patiently, in a corner
Of a street I would end up by accident.
I must break resistance with action and
A will power I still need to nurture,
In order not to break from the pressure
That won’t transform me into a diamond.”
Ana
It Takes Courage... And lots of Chocolate 