But my English teacher said that summers are for exploring the warmth
It was the summer I was going mad, my eyes leaking water, glistening in the sun; it was the summer I fell on the ground in the Shampoo aisle of Walmart, the summer I went to America; it was the summer that was meant to be a summer of new beginnings; it was rather a summer of despair, of thoughts growing inward like a baby in the womb of a woman; it was rather a summer when I wanted to die by killing myself; it was the summer the legs of the car were too close to my feet, that I wanted to put one step forward and no step back; it was the summer I sold my beat-up Fiat and slept in the garage; it was the summer my parents died because of another car; it was the summer I was too cold to speak; it was the summer I turned ugly; it was the summer I killed a chipmunk and screamed about it in the Tampa Valley while a girl of two or four stared at me as if I was a mad, mad person; it was the summer I meandered through summer streams searching for gold in California; it was the summer I waited, waited, waited; it was the summer I wanted to eat corn, for San Fransisco was as green as it sounded; it was a summer that was both obscure and revealing; it was the summer of living in a ranch in the mid-west; it was the summer I read the biography of Emily Dickinson and wanted to write poetry; it was the summer I didn’t write poetry; it was the summer of sunshine, of being naked at Sunny Cove; it was the summer I worked overtime at Burger King; it was the summer after my junior year of high school ended and I was working on my college applications; it was the summer I just wanted to speak, speak, speak, rather admonishingly spiralling into a labyrinth of delusions; the summer I lost focus while driving and went barefoot to Lake Michigan and never returned.
Harsimran Kaur is a seventeen-year-old author of three books. Her work has been recognised by The Royal Commonwealth Society, Oxford University Press, and the International Human Rights Art Festival. Her website is www.harsimranwritesbooks.com/ . She is currently a senior in high school in India.
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Art by Sven Sivertssen CC2.0
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