September 8,

Today was hot, just like every other day this summer that proceeded it. The humidity blurred the air over the sidewalk and something smelled sharp and metallic. Everything was exactly the same as it had been the day before, except everything was shifted and different.

If you listened carefully you would hear sirens flying past on the avenues, firetrucks traveling to fires that were unexpected at this point in the year, but still occurring because of the oppressive heat. If you listened harder, you would hear the thick and constant rush of air moving through stale leaves that were ready to make their journey to the ground, the branches that had proudly held them all summer were tired and drooping. If you listened even harder then that, you would hear the loud squeal of the old brakes of a school bus a half a mile away.

In the middle of the baking city, where so many kids were melting in classrooms and thinking of sparkling swimming pools, I sat on my stoop and thought about the changing seasons.

I don't like the changing of the seasons because I'm sensitive to what it all means. Four times a year I get anxious and over tired, I want to crawl away into the month before and forget the fact that time marches on.

I watched the grass wave as a rare breeze came through my street and I listened to my brother and sister recount their first day at school and I wanted to get up and run away. Run south, where summer never ever ends. Run somewhere foreign, where the changing seasons would be the last thing on my mind.

Autumn especially makes me think of things I'd rather not dwell on like my lack of academic life this year, or how much I miss the colorful fields of Highbury.

I sat on my stoop and thought about how even though I resented it, time was still moving forward and soon it would be the end of the first day of school and the sky would be changing to dark blue. Despite never having smoked, I wanted a cigarette like a usually do in those moments because I feel its the proper accesory to all of my angst.

I sat on my stoop and had the one thought that can cripple anyone, "I am the only one who feels this way."

And then I got up and went back inside.