I come home in the summertime.

When the swallows take flight

and the tree frogs breathe song

and I gasp pollen and feed dust as I run.

I can only take solace in the discomfort of the sun.

With a first burn peeling

and itching legs

and each day a step closer to tone;

I am only home when there is always work to do.

When my soul can be tied by the bleating of sheep and the

ever-upward march of the grass,

with tangles of fescues and vetch to secure my feet.

Frost will cut them down

and cut me free,

but even now I long for that hopeful melancholy of spring.

I am not home here.

I am passing through on my return to the stifling comfort

of loose cows and broken tractors.

No matter how familiar I become

with racing cars and crowded pubs,

I will stay a stranger until May.

I run to your house too often,

Call you at dusk from the driveway,

Wishing away the seconds while we

Sit in silence on a flatbed

And listen to sheep and crickets in the dark.

You go through my phone and delete contacts,

Talk to me while I skip physics,

Pick me up for a drive just "because".

We have a prom date in a lambing barn that I look forward to far more than any dance.

Everyone knows how I feel for you.

I'm certain you must as well.

It's probably better that neither of us mention it.

I don't want to ruin the silence.

On cold days in May,

sheep have a tendency

to do one or both of two things:

give birth, or die.

So when you go out into the field

to find a lamb dying where it lies,

you're not that shocked.

I tuck it in my coat, keep it warm,

keep it close, tell it this is the most

impossible thing you'll ever do

but you'll pull through.

And sometimes, on the most

beautiful of cold May days,

it does.

On a cold day in May,

I got a text from a number that used to make me smile.

I'd seen it coming for a while.

No matter how close I grasped it,

no matter how hard I tried,

I had felt the growing distance

and the space wouldn't subside

and

sometimes

cold days in May will bring

nothing but heartbreak.

Because now my phone is silent

and the lamb in my jacket is too.

But there will be other lambs,

I tell myself.

There will be more.

I want to stop hurting you.

I want to feel under control.

You said "it's okay" but it's not,

and I am terrified of the day

that you walk away from my crazy,

because you have every right.

This is not your fault.

You do not ruin everything.

I am not going to leave you over a phone call.

I need to trust you.

Why can't I say those words

instead of

"I hate you,"

"I'll do something drastic,"

"You don't love me."

I get it now,

finally,

that I am causing all of this.

Please have some patience.

Please let me learn to love.

There is something

enduringly romantic

about waiting till marriage.

But it's not romance.

It's misjudged desperation.

It's giving myself to you

only if you will take all of me.

I'm waiting until

honest-drunk me

can last a night without crying,

"you don't love me."

I could express this in nuanced language,

weave metaphors of flames,

or waves,

or storms within me.

I could construct creative walls in which

I hide naked desire,

fearful of you finding what I mean.

Label me a nympho or a freak,

question my intentions if you must,

but I cannot conceal how

I want you.

But whenever I get close,

close enough to feel it,

close enough to show you that

I mean this,

I am afraid

again.

Fear rushes in like I am

a grade nine girl holding hands in a bus seat,

waiting for her first kiss from the only boy she’d ever loved.

Like I am

that same girl three weeks later,

stumbling through a script fed by the boy’s well-intentioned friend.

Like I am

in the back row of a theatre,

dimly lit and worried about braces.

Like I am

watching someone pull away, hearing them tell me everything’s okay,

and knowing that it’s not, knowing that they’re leaving, knowing that when I try to fix it

I only expediate the end.

Fear comes to me the same way it did

at our beginnings,

the same way it did

at our endings.

To put it simply:

I want you,

and of that I am afraid.

How long until we complete the cycle

again?