Nostalgic about summer

every version of me that summer touched

When summer begins, it’s not just the heat that changes.
It’s the way skin starts asking to be touched again.
I change my name.
I change who I am.
My hair stays curly, like waves folding softly around my ears. My tears taste like salt, falling only when he isn’t there. And his ocean eyes… they’re still the only place I’ve ever wanted to drown.
Summer is poetry.
It’s lying under the sun until your skin burns, trying to paint yourself in freckles someone else will kiss later.
People complain about the heat — the sweat down their backs, the thirst, the way the air sticks to their bodies.
But to me, it feels familiar.
Like a lover who only comes once a year.

---

Summer 2015

It was the first time my body allowed me to wear a bikini.
My breasts had finally grown into themselves, my body still thin, still soft with that teenage lightness. I remember running across the beach with my cousins, the sun pressing against our shoulders like something alive.
We were all chasing the perfect picture.
Jumping. Falling. Laughing.
Letting the ocean take us in pieces.
Life felt easy. Like nothing could break yet.

At sunset, everything turned gold — our skin, our hair, the way we looked at each other. We made bracelets with wet fingers and drank virgin margaritas, pretending we were drunk when really it was just sugar rushing through our veins.
At night, we swam under the stars. The water cold against our warm bodies, but we didn’t care. We stayed anyway. Splashing. Laughing. Pretending we were mermaids.
I didn’t know it would be the last summer like that.
I should have stayed longer in the water.

---

Summer 2019

I had already been grieving past summers, but this one… this one ruined something in me.
I still remember the heat when we stepped out of the car. The sun hit my face so hard it felt violent. My cheeks burned instantly, my body sticky under my clothes.
I wanted to take everything off.
To feel air on my skin.
He introduced me to his family. The house was old, beautiful in that quiet, imperfect way. But none of that mattered.
It was my first summer with him.
Our first road trip.
Our first and last everything.
We had scrambled eggs and Coke for breakfast. “It’s tradition,” he said, serious.
I hated it. I loved it. I accepted it.
Days blurred into heat and laughter — amusement parks, sticky hands, cameras capturing moments that would later haunt me. Because after all the sweetness, all the noise, all the pretending…only silence stayed.
Only the sound of my heart breaking.
He called me a liar.
He left.
Three years gone in a sentence.
And no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember that summer without tasting humiliation on my tongue.

---

Summer 2020

The world stopped, but summer didn’t.
My house was made of wood back then, and the heat lived inside the walls. I spent my days lying in the grass, listening to bees hum looking for honey and birds calling each other across the sky.

My hair grew longer, wilder, blonde. Tangled by the wind. My skin darkened under the midday sun, turning golden, almost glowing.
I wanted freckles so badly.
Something permanent.
Something to prove I was still alive.
Because inside, I was empty.
I was still waiting for him. Still checking my phone like a maniac. Still feeding a love that had already died.
So I filled the silence with bodies.
With hands that didn’t know me.
With passion that meant nothing.
Bad sex. Temporary warmth.
A distraction I kept choosing.
And still… somehow…
that quiet summer began to clean me. Slowly. Painfully.
Boring lovers. To many selfies. Mirror nudes. Glitter mixed with tears.
I look back and wonder — what was I even doing?

---

Summer 2021

My hair turned red. Again and again, until it felt like I was becoming fire.
I sat under an umbrella, watching the ocean stretch endlessly, my skin burning from hours of swimming without sunscreen. Salt drying on my body, lips cracked, shoulders aching.
My parents told me to stay out of the sun. I was annoyed. Of course I was.
But something inside me was… calm.
For the first time in years, I wasn’t breaking.
I was learning my body.
Learning its limits.
Learning to keep it for myself.
I made a quiet promise:
no more giving myself to people who don’t know how to hold me.

My brother sat next to me, asking where my mind had gone. He thought it was the burns on my skin.
But it wasn’t.
“I’m finding myself in the waves,” I told him. “In how they always come back, even after traveling miles away.”
He didn’t fully understand.
But he held me anyway.
And that was enough.
That summer, I peeled their fingertips off my skin, their kisses, their bruises—everything past lovers had left behind.

---

Summer 2023

Festival season.
My favorite kind of summer.
I left home for the first time, heart racing inside my chest, pretending I wasn’t scared of crashing, of burning, of everything going wrong. But I still got on that plane. I still chose the unknown.
Because I wanted more.
More noise. More bodies. More life.

Rooftop heat, expensive drinks, the city glowing under us — it should’ve been perfect. My skin was already sticky, my outfit clinging in all the right places, eyes watching, hands almost touching.
And then… her. Too loud. Too careless. The type that doesn’t just enter a room — she scratches it. Starts things for no reason. Smiles like she’s innocent when she’s already ruined the night.
She kept picking at one of my friends, over and over, like she needed attention to breathe. I remember watching her, jaw tight, thinking: why are you even here?

But the next day—
the real summer started.
We woke up early, still half-tired, half-hungry for more. Sitting on the floor, legs crossed, doing each other’s makeup like ritual. Glitter covering our bodies. Makeup already melting under the sun. Tiny fabrics. Bare skin. Heat rising from everywhere.
Four days of exhaustion.
Four days where our bodies were free.
Sweat. Music. Bodies moving too close. Hands brushing, hips colliding, eyes locking just a second too long.
I swear parts of my soul are still there — somewhere between Rosalía, Billie Eilish, and Tame Impala.
We tripped through a whole set, laughing too hard, feeling everything too deeply. My legs were sore, my throat dry, my skin turning cold and blue, but still — I stayed.

Every night ended the same:
a burning hot shower, glitter washing off slowly, smoke filling my lungs, sleep taking over.
And then again.
And again.

When it ended, it felt cruel. Like being dropped back into a life that didn’t fit anymore.
But something shifted in me.
On the way back home, somewhere between departure gates and tickets, I think I became someone new.
Someone louder.
Someone freer.
Someone who finally stopped asking for permission.

---

Summer 2025

My long, black hair was my signature, falling down my back like something untamed. I liked to think it made me look like a witch — like it gave me a kind of power, a personality you could almost touch.
Until one day, I cut it all off.
A short bob. A new version of me.
My old hair laid in the trashcan forgotten, like my old life.

That summer tasted like lake water and late nights. I tanned under the sun on boats, capturing everything — every reflection, every movement, every fleeting moment.
I was learning how to see.

Disco lights above my head. Drinks I can’t name. No bra. Skin exposed to the night like it belonged to the stars.
Because summer was made to just enjoy yourself right?
I guess I enjoy myself so much because I ended up in a hospital bed, my body collapsing under something I shouldn’t have taken. The kind of mistake that lingers. Sorry not sorry.
But somehow… it didn’t take the summer away from me.
Because there were still nights. Soft ones.
Lying in bed with him. Watching movies. Laughing quietly. Making love. Sharing food. Sharing space. Sharing something that felt almost like forever.
We made promises under the sheets. The kind that feel real when whispered in the dark.
And every night, before sleeping, I prayed to the stars:
that the next summer would take me somewhere new,
bring me people I’ve only dreamed of,
and let me fall in love again —
with bodies, with the waves, with life.