
1 minute read
SPRINGTIME, OR THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD
from Grotonian Draft
by Amy Ma
Alisa Gulyansky
So you are spring, and you yearn to grow, to change, to plant your roots and stretch toward a world far-removed from your home just to see what it may hold. Eventually, you learn what this will mean for you: some day, you will yearn to know (or worse, to love) a creature that exists beyond your warm enclave — to rebel, if nothing else.
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And so you do. She is a beast of October, rife with desperation and ever-eager to self-destruct. Something in her lifelessness calls to you, her comfort with darkness scorn for your life of eternal climbing. Instead, she sinks, prepared to plunge head-first into the depths of black December. She is far from the home you know.
You reach out. Touch. What is love, if not rebellion? A plunge into the unknown. You swear to her you’ll show her the climb, carry her on her shoulders as was once done for you, take her to the apex of your mountainous journey of seasons and show her a light in what you see as her mind of darkness.
She resists. You scoop her off her feet and sling her across your back and carry with you the weight of a thousand earths before you reach the top of your home. The horizon is all yours, and so is she. She is screaming, crying, pleading to return home. Naive, you think. She will grow soon. How could she be unhappy in this state?
It was springtime. Or at least, the weight of the world had vanished. The air was humid, saccharine. Your lungs were full of sweetness.