You don’t need to fix the scars. You don’t need to chase the feeling. You don’t need to book a last-minute flight to pretend summer isn’t dying.
Summer exposes. You wore less fabric, showed more skin, ate the ice cream, drank the beer. You have the mosquito bites, the scraped knees from that clumsy bike ride, the callus on your finger from paddleboarding. Your body holds the map of July. In the after , when you put the long sleeves back on, you feel the ghost of that exposure. It’s a scar you can’t see, but it aches when the wind turns cold. scars of summer after
You just sit on the porch in the cooling air. You wrap your hands around a mug of something hot. You run your finger over the pale line on your knee—the one from the dock splinter. You don’t need to fix the scars
Now we are in the after . The season hasn’t ended on the calendar, but you can feel the shift. The light is different—lower, honey-colored, desperate. The garden is a mess of overgrown zucchini and tomato vines that have finally given up. The beach towels smell faintly of mildew and regret. Summer exposes
Summer friendships are intense. You share sunsets, cheap rosé, and secrets you’d never tell in the harsh light of January. But the after is quieter. The group chat slows down. Someone moved to a new city. Someone else got back with their ex and disappeared. The scar is the silence where a laugh track used to be.