August isn't autumn, right

It's the sound of an eternal harmonica note, no matter how cheerful it started out, like time who rusts everything, the note will twist and turn to a sad melody underlining the month.

Using your whole hand to hold on to their one finger, dear god, no matter how tight your grip it will always slip, and you knew this was going to happen. The thought lay snuggingly at a corner in your mind. You'll witness it in real time and mutter ‘no, no, no, no’ but things will take its course and they will slip out of your grasp like the current swaying the yellow moon. And you let them go. Let July go. Stand by yourself for a while, until you get so sick of it.

August is a transitional month, out of summer fantasies, dreamy star nights, that seasickness that hits so good, into the reality of a hot dripping heat, of the slimy orange hanging higher than your weathered-friends. And that summer fling turns out to just be a fling, smiling starts to hurt, and you are running out of one hit lines to use at bars. They're all signs.

August is the hangover of summer. the Sunday where you get to rest but would rather stay restless thinking about the ride of July and the dooming September ahead. Sunday blues, august blues, they're from the same womb.

Everyone rushes to group august with the autumns, maybe in an effort to busy the month with agendas: fall folk music playlists, pumpkins house decors, long coats and suede jackets thrift shops, so many things to get done. Though by design August is stagnant. August doesn't have meaning, you're supposed to have nothing to do for June’s fun is way over. So the heat seeps through your shirt crawling onto your bare skin. It's uncomfortable, it's boring, but boredom gives birth to creativity and life.

 

For me, who hasn’t done anything during summer except for laying around, pondering the years to come, and gulp water once in two days to satisfy the thirst, there’s always a pressure to maximize summer, which turns into guilt because I have not done enough, or anything at all. The paradox that comes out of this is the desire to enjoy summer knowing that it’s coming to a close, which really fatigues my mind.

June and July felt like a breeze, everyone put down their guards, exchanged conversations, made out, and danced above the sea. That summer pill hit hard, but their shells closed again as July retreats.

Back to the mundane days and music is the repetitive ticking clock. back to the interlude where shadows begin to stretch, back to the muted greens. It's like being at the bar but in the morning, like the last notes of a song that lingers in the air long after the music has stopped.

Like Lorde once wrote “but every perfect summer's gotta say goodnight".