Allison's Archives

Trust not the cicadas to remember you for that is neither their purpose nor want. I sit with my back facing the fan, a book in my hand, as I wait for my hair to dry. There seems to be a larger platter of patience to go around during summer as if we are all longing for the arrival of something or the other. Most of us yearn for summer itself, but in reality, we mean summer when we were only sixteen and marginally sad. The few pine for foreign heat, plane tickets, neon lights, sea salt, unsweetened lemonade, and premature weddings. Unfortunately, your hyper-specificity will not save you from the drought; better luck next summer. 

My hair is now longer than it was summer last and takes longer to dry. My body goes limp in my room; summer is commonly associated with the coming alive of things but I beg to differ greatly between spring blooms and autumn deaths. Summer is when things begin to rot, if you please, the most forgiving season of all because everyone knows everyone has something rotting in their chest of drawers and it is only a matter of time before the smell permeates the floorboards and latches onto your neighbor’s tiled backsplash. And so I urge you: atone for your dreams and not your sins so long as the sun is out. 

This summer is in need of more warmth and some form of rebellion but I can yield neither. Instead, I will swim in this here martini glass until the water turns murky and my swimsuit prunes with my skin and I will perform a series of actions that is neither my purpose nor want, purely because summer wills me to. She says, glaringly, if I want the sun to stay, time I must squander away. Sip on Aperol Spritz but remember that is not the color of this summer, it is in fact the blinding brat green you cannot escape thanks to Charli XCX, argue the extent to which the new Democratic candidate for the presidential election is a brat, somebody find the marketing intern and give her a raise, she probably had the whole office unseriously partake in slick back bun and a mini, she probably has advanced copies of Sally Rooney’s upcoming book in her ludicrously capacious Jane Birkin-fied tote bag that also fits her Stanley bottle and its dozen attachments, but enough about her, I can’t help but wonder about Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big and situationships, oh to hell with situationships they are the devil’s lunch, do you think the devil takes his lunch Hot To Go or does he like them cold like revenge, mother nature is taking its revenge on us if we don’t all start thrifting and praying at the altar of underconsumption but even underconsumption serves capitalism and they are adding matcha to every damn fruit these days before hiking the prices, so maybe it is time to redesign myself as a trad wife but what if I am a good ballerina and all my husband knows to show his appreciation is to move me away from the city and gift me an egg apron, I guess I will stay in the city with my ballet core wardrobe and join a run club where I might hopefully find my man in finance, trust fund, six five, blue eyes, speaking of immense wealth, have you read about the Ambani wedding and the celebrities and performers that attended, music is dead, long live music, how about you listen to an influencer’s podcast that exposes her toxic manipulative ex-boyfriend instead and think about whether it is all a publicity stunt and if it is you can’t get mad at it because you were entertained for a modicum of a second and it is all actually geniusly brilliant. 

Do what you must—everything, all of it, including the bits you don’t like—then wait through the cursed winter until summer next comes back to slap you in the face like SPF50 sunscreen. So I implore you once more, less glaringly than the sun, to let your knees scrape and your heart bleed, for when summer goes and you put on warmer layers, nobody will be the wiser and it will be as if summer never even came. Whatever affairs you have to put in order: the first person you forgive and the last person you betray is yourself.