summer sweetness haunts me now,
in the autumn of my discontent.
my friend once told me, “summer groups never last,”
and i knew it to be true, but if only summer could last forever!
those nights of innocence and abandon,
swimming free and naked in the jeweled waters lit by a torch,
playing dubious games of spin-the-bottle ’round the unneeded campfire.
listening to a lesbian play “Joey” on the guitar one too many times,
frolicking later to the tune of Indigo Girls as she played ’til a hazy dawn.
and dancing! oh, i remember dancing,
pulsing rhythms and lights and the vinyl of my pants clinging to my thighs,
glued to every curve with sweat.
i remember standing outside of the warehouse where the raves were,
hoping for a cool midsummer night’s breeze to lay its delicate hand upon my brow.
and i remember the delicate hand of a friend upon my breast,
being curled up in bed with her and candles all around and Enya playing all night long.
candles; fire, the element of change–has it always surrounded my life?
candles burned as techno played when he kissed me, and the scent of Nag Champa hung
heavy in the air.
a fire burned in us, then–
a fire which eventually consumed us, and we arose months later from the ashes of our
previous experience,
changed once more by that metamorphosing flame.
the flames of summer burned hot this cycle.
they burned in those camping sunrises as we drove blearily to Huddle House for a fruit waffle,
they burned in the warmth of of the thousand cups of coffee we drank on the loitersome sidewalks.
they burned in the beat of the raving sound.
they burned in me as lovers came and went,
they burned in me as i became once more a man.
they burned in the flushing aftertaste of alcohol, as we drank at the bar and drank at the campsite
and drank at his house and drank in the air-conditioned paradise of her apartment.
the flames burned as his car flipped off the road and sent him to a room in ER.
the flames burned as aliens blew up the white house,
as i read the cards of friends and strangers alike,
as we lit our firecrackers, just the two of us, on a dead-end mountain road.
the heat changed us all, in a way.
it was the heat of a fever, a fever that broke as my life became perfect for four days.
my life was cold, then, as autumn descended upon me like a great, chilling cloak.
the flame still burns inside of me though, quietly, and i see it still reflected in the eyes of
some of that infamous summer gang.
another summer will come, and with it, another group.
it won’t be the same.

each of our years is a snowflake made of fire,
another perfect, terrible gem,
unable to return as it once was.
the phoenix arises from its own ashes,
each time different for the experience.
it is baptism by fire,
and i–
i am a spirit forever being reforged in the liquid flame of salvation.