Adrianna Davis

Arkansas summers are

Unforgiving in their relentless heat.

 

And in the summer, our parents

Would lock us out of the house.

We weren’t allowed inside,

Save for bathroom breaks.

We even ate our lunches outside.

 

Summers were 

Bike tires against gravel roads,

Fields of tall grass and flowers.

Sweet onions.

Cold creeks, and wooded trails,

And a tall tree that was my shelter.

 

Summers were

Siblings

friends

and the animals we loved to play with.

I could keep my finger on a scorpion for

Ten seconds

Before I became afraid of it.

We trapped snakes,

a raccoon.

I wanted to be just like Steve.

Watching him wrangle animals, and promote education and conservation, filled my nature loving soul with hope.

 

Down the road, behind an abandoned dilapidated house

Was an old broken down school bus with busted windows and flat tires.

We would climb up onto the roof,

And sit with our legs dangling down,

Breathing deep,

The pit of my stomach, hollow, with the fear of

Falling off.

 

Summers were spending time,

Sweltering

Sunburned

Swearing with the neighbor’s older brothers.

Singing on the rocks by the lake, wishing I was a mermaid, Luring men to their deaths, for what they did to me.

 

Driving

Dancing

Ducking from the BB guns, aimed at us. Playing the neighbors version of tag. We ran while he shot.

 

Summers were for wishing for school

For friends, for learning

For lunches

That weren’t PB&Js.

 

Summers were endless days and

Endless nights

And

Summers were made

To make me feel

Whole.

 

Summer lifted my spirits,

Staving off the seasonal depression that

Would grip my soul,

But summer days would sink to

Freezing nights

 

Trading 

Friends for bullies,

Stuck inside, with a mom, reclusive and almost comatose in her depression 

And a sick dad who tended to her day and night. 

PB&Js for pizza at school.

 

The joy of an unbridled summer would

Turns to the helplessness and death

Of winter.