The summer stands, warm and looming, deceptively close.
The promises it holds battle with nostalgia, like waves against the hot sand.
It is the fastest, sharpest flash of bright lightening freedom on the horizon
Before the thunder rolls in to smother us.
How can we make an instant last forever?

This ice holds promises, for once, of vibrant life.
As it melts, the crumpled leaves beneath it will unfurl,
Rejuvenate, soften, float like feathers upwards
To rejoin themselves at the seams to where they once clung.
Our last chance to get everything right.

And it will be, everything, perfect this time.
Closer than ever, happy for the first time,
We will run and leap and snatch adventures for our own.
Meeting our distant idols with apprehension,
And all others with blazing confidence, we add to the summer’s shine.

Let us pile our memories here, cement them together
With the paste of never-lasting, and make ourselves
A rock to stumble home to, to cling to when we feel like weeping.
There for us when we cannot be there for each other,
When we cannot be there for ourselves.

Ready yourselves, your weapons, your teeth,
Prepare to grip the coming golden hours by the shoulders
And smash, bite, tear, claw, live every drop
Of bright ichor, sweat, and tears out of them.
Claim a trophy to display in the glass case of your memory.

All these years we have been faintly glowing,
Gearing and storing up our energy for when we will need it most.
Wrench your courage to that fabled sticking-place,
Like we read about so long ago, and let the light of yourself
Shine through at last, blinding, and shatter the shell of who you were.

The days are approaching, slowly, loudly,
One notch at a time, like a rollercoaster track.
When we reach the top, hold on not to the cart
But to each other, and we will, all of us together, grit our teeth
And love beyond belief at our last chances to say hello.