thin skin

i love the northwest so much i can't imagine living anywhere else, at least not for an extended amount of time. we have everything: seasons, mountains, water, forests, rivers, GREEN life. i love the way the air feels when its just rained, the sound of autumn leaves underfoot, the feel of sunshine in summer, the smell of fall and the feel of awakening and renewal, the mornings of snowfall.
but alas, all that said, i am feeling the thinness of my pale skin and wishing so hard that the sun would come and prick me. burn me even.
i yearn for leather sandals, transparent dresses, suits, tan/pink skin. i want to relive that day when j, allegra and i walked up to the park and laid in the sunshine and laughed ourselves sore. my skin begs for you summer, come hither! my heart needs you too, for after awhile, being indoors or wet all the time, takes its tole. my mind needs you because i can't think right in these spaces between doors and cars and rain drops. i've had enough thinking in rain drops.
words are repeating themselves in my head... a poem i wrote freshmen year. i remember sitting in front of miller hall, cowboy boot adorned legs splayed in front of me, watching the rain come down down down, filling puddles in the dips of red square. the rain has the power to turn every campus from a hub of excitement and knowledge to a place where we avoid eye contact, as if the rain might actually melt us if we look up from our phones or ipods. yes we are made out of sugar. but we're not holding umbrellas because lets face it- we just don't do that.

haiku for a rainy day
wrote your name on paper
threw it away
silent confession
when you leave
i stay.

i'm not saying its good. i'm just saying.
it is funny how certain things stay with us though. some of which, the importance is lost on me.

in winter i get up at night
and dress by yellow candlelight
in summer quite the other way
i have to go to bed by day
i have to go to bed and see
the birds still hopping on the tree
and hear the grown up people's feet
still passing by me in the street.

that poem is one of my favorites. i like the simplicity of it and the child's perspective. its from a children's poems book my mom has had in our home for years. i memorized it right away when i read it. i must have been under 10 years old.