A Truth, Borne of Summer

The languid days of this southern summer month bore down on me. I thought of you. Maybe it was the memories of you that bore down on me; it's hard to say at this point. It was damn hot nonetheless, and the parallelism was quite rewarding.

I sat there reading, trying to concentrate on the words. I couldn't keep the sweat from blurring my vision. It's kind of like crying, I thought, but the sting is more physical. The words, they stung. For years, you said, we were a masquerade, but there was no ball. Our true selves were hidden from each other, from ourselves. The space between the masks we wore and the souls they concealed wasn't vast, but it was effective. The physical a poor equivalence of the metaphysical.

The heat took its toll. I couldn't read any more, so I closed my eyes and tried to understand your words. The stinging went away. I understood.

You pretended to love. I pretended to care.