Dearest Summer,

It’s not you, it’s me. I sweat profusely, I don’t know how to dress, and, frankly, I don’t know how to treat you right or respect you baby I don’t know. Maybe I was supposed to know you, love you, respect you, feel you because you remind me of my body. An organism with a self-cooling capability that produces water as easily as Mother Earth does from the sky, and I wonder if this was part of your game? To create forced connections with water? To sweat out the discomfort to prove my humanity and to force me to feel something. Yes, I have this body, yes I am real, and yes I do feel … discomfort being reminded of my body’s homeostasis. Its liquid sliding scale.

However, I do intensely enjoy the other component of my fluid homeostasis, but why is cumming so much more pleasurable than sweating? Both create pools in my bed, but only one is a pleasure to sleep in. Okay, in reality neither, and I really need to wash my sheets. Why do we sweat things out? Why do we (some of us) squirt? Why is an orgasm a flood or a push? Why do we create things we push away from when we are really pushing away from ourselves? Why is it so uncomfortable being human?

So you see Summer, I hate that you remind me of myself and my humanity. You will never be Autumn, Summer. Whenever you are in full bloom, I always want to recede and hibernate. Whenever you are smiling, I want it to rain. I know its strange being a Summer baby, but I grow in winter while the trees reserve their energy for the next cycle. You don’t do that Summer, you drain me.

And yet, I do have a fondness for you. Memories I will always associate with you. You are the hills on fire and the ash that I had to wipe off my windshield like snow. You were scabbed knees and burned feet. You will never be Autumn. I didn’t know Autumn growing up. In Southern California, we had two seasons, fire and sun, and there was no mention of Autumn. What did she look like? Who lived with her? I had heard about the changing color of leaves and the rumored “coat season” but had never experienced it myself. Even when visiting Ohio, I was only ever witness to Summer and Winter. You always did like to follow me wherever I went.

But where is Autumn? I had met an Autumn in high school and thought I had found her, but she moved a year later. I wondered if she would ever return. Where did she go? And what kind of cruel parents would raise a kid named Autumn in Southern California. I didn’t have the courage to say hello and, I mean, what would she think of my clothes? I had hoped she was not as judgmental as Wednesday or Noon. Fuck Noon. Her parents paid her full ride to college and she never worked a day in her life, so fuck Noon. Also, your name means “bread.” God I love bread. Bring me your sweet loaf, so I may nestle in your yeasty folds. Okay, that sounded disgusting. Why is “yeasty” so gross? Why is discharge? Why is everything associated with the human body perceived in such negative connotative terms? Especially for women? I can’t help where my sweat collects in my folds.