Synesthesia

I think of you and I think of March. The taste immediately bubbles onto the back of my tongue and no amount of swallowing will make it go away. March tastes of something that was once sweet but later soured – like a peach that was only half rotten. March smells like freshly bloomed cherry blossoms that made the mistake of blooming a little too early – they fall after a cold night. The air is brisk upon my neck but I sweat in the sun. March is indecisive, March never really knows if it wants to be March just yet and is still a little stuck in February. March is March and nothing can really change the taste it tattooed on the back of my tongue; nothing can really change the sickly sweet smell of cherry blossoms burned into my nose.

You were March. You kissed me under that cherry tree, you gave me your arm when March decided to be February. You were March when you couldn’t decide between me or her; the coldness between us or the warmth within her. You were March in your persistence to continue living through all the cold nights I left you with an empty bed.

I think I was March once too.

You were October, ready and ambitious at collecting your bountiful harvest.

March was naive; it did not yet know it was the precursor to the hopeful idea of spring with frost still biting at its toes. It did not yet know that in one freezing night, the entire hope of spring can be diminished – all life before, dead again.

That’s the thing with March – March can never decide to be cold or warm, a yes or a no. March is easily convinced to bloom when it thinks all is safe, only for it to have been tricked by the bitter cold.

I was March – March was me.

I bloomed too early and died the next week.

October visited March, ready for harvest but March wasn’t ready for spring quite yet. That was April’s job. But October was demanding and March – as indecisive as she were, said nothing. She fell into the warmth, she delivered, and she came out cold. March wasn’t ready for blossoms yet – but October needed his harvest. If only March had the wisdom of April, or maybe the warmth and knowledge of June. Maybe then March would’ve known to say it out loud – I am not yet ready for Spring.