Light Of Summer Poem by Leah Ayliffe

I didn't really think about it
As I spent hours, days, wandering around the inside of the house walls
Dancing every now and then to the radio
Lying on the floor staring out the big windows that look into the back yard.
The pool still iced from winter,
But traces of green water began to melt through to vision.
Still waiting for green trees and garden flowers to pop up like they continue to do each year
Thanks to the upkeep of mom and dad.

I tried not to think about it.

As I wrote each day about the internal mental struggle I've been living
Exhausted by boredom and being of no use to anyone,
particularly myself.
Pouring cup of coffee after cup
Lighting candles to make the room pretty
Pretending like sadness wasn't searching for its way back in.
I began to wonder if I had created the memories that were sustaining me,
Questioning their authenticity in my head.
Was there a time where I lived in happiness?
Magic and laughter combined like a dream on earth.

Did those summers in Toronto that end too soon really have all the miracles I believed in,
Like unity and love in a crowd of a good beat and melody.
Cruising on a boat across Maple Lake, feeling the wind as though the rush would save me.
Or those vivid images of another land,
Singing Madonna and Jim Morrison through the streets of Prague at night
'People are strange, when you're a stranger'
With a stranger that seemed like fate.

Fields and fields of wild flowers, gold as the sun, tall like trees,
In the fresh Polish air.
An image of a happy family.
An image of pure love.

I tried not to think about it.
How it could all be lost in the hidden treasure of memory.
Twisted, altered, and reshaped to form the ideal I want it to be.

Then the morning came when I didn't have to care anymore.
I woke up and from my window I saw the low glimmer of the sun begin to rise
In dark shades of pink and orange, while the blue of night still hovered lightly over top
Like a protective blanket.
The sun rises.
The light touches all the fragile and beautiful figures I have placed around my room
To make it feel like a secret garden in Neverland.

I thought about it.
I remembered with clarity.
Things are only as real as we believe them to be.
I remembered,
Happiness is as real as the day.
I forget some days, even weeks at a time,
That summer always makes its way back
Just as the sun always rises.

I will always wait for summer.
I will always let the light win.