Perfect Bath for Her Imperfect Child

The sunlight filtering through the swaying leaves falls on my face. It feels warmer now that the winter has passed. 

I was younger— the last time I stood here. So much time has passed, and the spring inside me has nearly died. 

Now, the spring is falling over my face. I am trying to drench myself in it, soak in as much as I can. Every time the gentle wind grazes my skin, the leaves rustle. The sound brings me the same comfort as the jingle of that bunch of keys my mother used to carry around, hooked by her waist. The breeze is cold, but there is a hint of this new warmth mixing in it. A warmth that is absent during the winters. 

A mother adding steaming hot water to a bucket of cold water as she prepares the perfect bath for her imperfect child. 

Is spring a being of its own? Or merely a trace left by the cold winter which is now in care of the summer? Is this why everything flourishes, everything is beautiful during spring? Like a child in its mother’s lap?

Sometimes the summer gets harsh too, leaves you scorched, and yet you end up yearning for it on a cold night.

I can see the fragments of the sky through these green leaves. It looks like the sky I once knew. When I was younger, when I was wiser, when the spring inside me was still blooming, when there used to be a hand caressing my head until I fell asleep. 

My hands turn into fists at my sides. The wind is gentle, but it is cruel. I wish I still knew this sky. I couldn’t get scorched by the summer even if I wanted to. I despise spring.