August... don’t leave! I can’t live without you. I don’t want to live without your warm breath. Without the scent of overripe figs. Without the bag of laundry following yet another weekend at the seaside. Without his hands, always searching for their way on my dress and finding a cranny to a bare shoulder. August, wait. I wasn’t ready for your departure so soon. I’ve missed so many dawns on the beach. I couldn’t even roam, adrift in the hay just for the sake of it, and eat a couple of tomatoes right from the branch. Still warm from the sun. Still full of life and summer scent.
August... it’s not fair that you end so quickly. I haven’t even mustered the courage to tell him how much I love the way he takes his first sip of coffee in the morning... Taking the cup in both his hands, he inhales the aroma, then I can hear his lips touching the coffee, as he takes a sip and sighs. Ahhh :) Just a sip, but seems like a declaration of love for life. August, I wish you could last at least till October. And for the summer to last at least a month longer. And for the bars on Gradina to be open for a week longer. And for shop windows not to be displaying coats and boots – the collections might be new, but the clothes are the same, year after year. Black, grey, brown...
August, don’t leave. I need my white-flowered blue dress. My yellow bag with the bead. My bathing suit. My flip-flops with the worn-out soles. The love in the warm nights when he and I sleep stark naked and don’t even need bedsheets, and still are so warm when we touch ... so summery, so real. August! Wait. I have to tell you something. I’ve been thinking of it at least since July, but ... I can’t seem to have the courage. I love you. I love you, summer. I love that embarrassing moment where I leave the bar in the morning and people have already arrived at the beach. I love the mornings when, not having even washed my teeth yet, I open my phone, look through all the pictures from the night before, and delete 99% of them. I look at them again before I press Delete. I smile. It was nice. So nice that no one should know. August... there is so much we haven’t said. You have stolen so many memories. And so many happy-ending stories.
Come on! I don’t ask for so much. Only for you and me on the deck. You drinking your favourite whisky and reading poetry to me, then kissing me and then saying: I want to do it again :) And me, flirting, pretending to be offended, finishing your whisky, and in the end admitting... I love you. So much. August. I can’t live without you. August, I’ll miss you. Wait for me. I’ll be back. Next year. Unchanged. I will once again climb down the hill of wet pleasure. Again it will be magical. Again, we’ll be together. Only me and the summer. The summer of warm promises.