Strokes on a Piano

The bathtub feels cold and unwelcoming, yet the hot stream of water offers the warm embrace my skin yearns for.

I see drops splattering away from the main stream of water, landing hard against the surface of cold enamel. If I didn’t know any better, I’d start feeling like I’m made out of enamel: white, cold, straight to the touch, immobilized and quiet.

Yet I want to feel like I belong to the stream. My mind wanders heavily, to a sea of white waves and crystal sands. I want to feel the warmth of the summer Sun against my watery body, I want to feel my blood boiling gently inside my vessels.

There is such a distance between that summer feeling, that bright scenery of freshness and this enclosed bath I’m sinking into now, that it hurts.

The distance hurts me. The coldness hurts me. The heavy, wet winds of winter hurt me. The Winter hurts me.

I am a child of Summer.

And I’m desperately trying to grasp my summer Self, so hard, but to no avail. My fingers make a fist around the hot stream of water, trying to keep it still in my hands.

Summer has slipped through just like this hot water is slipping through my frozen fingers.