like summer

When I said, "I miss you like summer," I was thinking of the sweltering heat that day that I took Feith to Taniguchi, and how we sat on big limestone rocks under the tree (my tree) and looked down at the water until our cheeks turned pink. I was thinking of a night spent under the stars with friends, watching a musical at the hillside theatre, and of the sweet tea we poured into a plastic jug to drink, and of the spicy salsa into which we dipped crispy corn chips, and how it was both cold and hot on my tongue.

And she got that, all the nuances of those five little words, translated into cilantro and tequila and the flavor of her personality, spicy and passionate like that salsa, and mine calm and warm (and maybe a bit muggy) like the night air.

And it all makes me miss her more.

I feel sometime like the one bird left in someone's backyard when the rest of the flock has taken off on its usual migratory path, and there's nothing to eat but birdseed, and nothing to do but wait, brave the winter, and hope they'll make it back at the end of the season

It's the hazard, I guess, in living in a transitory town and knowing transitory people. Nearly all my friends from college came to Austin, got their degrees, and then left. And though I thought it was a college phenomenon, it has stricken my coworkers, too; my friends leave one by one, chasing jobs or love or better lives, and I stay here to hold the fort and hope they'll return (someday), once the winter has passed.