Weekend freewrite, this one trailed off to a strange nowhere land.

Spring rolled around and it occurred to me that I hadn't been home in two years.

A flickering of memories, held at bay. Spring is not the time for opening of flood gates. The least cautionary of seasons, it presents a certain risk t'wards sentimentality. To forget.

Home to define it now means to ponder on that which once was, and to think on such things is to chance coming unravelled.

The seasons come and go, they exist and roll along regardless. But to traverse the seasons one must stay abreast and contained.

I exist regardless too, will or withdrawal, when mixed with apathy is to exist.
Exist I do, entirely separate from the cycles which were once marked with such significance, but it is an existence nonetheless.
Though the length of a day or the weather outside my window, is of little consequence.

The thought of home too stirred naught but the briefest reflection.
Am I home? Is this the place? Is home where I came from? Where they moulded me? Or where I be?

What defines such a place?

Speculation serving only to reinforce the unimportance of the observance of seasons in reference to that of past ties.

A pondering, a reference, nothing more.

The thought fleets in less than a beat of my tired heart, and most assuredly, absent of any quickening or stir.
Not so much as pause, a flinch, a surge of emotion was to break through.

I hear it, the spring.

Most feel it's kiss upon their skin, in the warming and lengthening of days, smell it in the blooming of fresh buds.

I hear it's ceaseless murmurings.

If I let it, I hear it echoed in corners of my unguarded thoughts, in the stammering and stumbling. I scramble for yet another way in which to deny any such connection to the round and round and round and never ending chasing of yearnings and wishes and hopes unfulfilled. And the incessant COPING.

How I despise that word. Are you coping?
Can we not aspire to achieve more than such minimal accomplishments as to simply cope.

I hear it, deep it grumbles, a rolling, but not of the seasons.

Spring's drum roll announces the beginning of the masquerade, the charade in which the simple turning of our rock is sold as new and fresh and a celebration of life. Born again, to start a fresh with yet another chance at coping.
The cloaking begins, of similes to dress the springtime morning in a mascarade of glory, matched with the garments and the window dressings to reinforce the fictitious parade. Spring fairs and pastel flair, to sell the cope that's once again packaged in hope.

Just enough cope to have you come back next cycle, but not enough to fulfil all hope, because growth depends on, dependence.

---

If I get into bed with you guys, I lose my clients.
A fine line drawn between the provision of satisfaction.

The business of springtime.

The crash diet sell, the body shaming that spring sells ahead of summer every year. Are you beach ready?
Are you too fat?
Too hairy?
Is your skin oily or saggy or wrinkly?
Do you have the right shade of tan?
The right bather brand?
What about your hair?
Is that a stray grey there?
Have you seen the latest...
Have you got the greatest?

Assault upon the senses. Upon my ears a trill alarmed. mine own voice I had thought, for although it was once most alien, over time the anthems become fact. Begin to sound from the depths of me. Absorbed by ritual of seasons. it surely came from me. After all, I may have once blamed those proximal.

But I am all alone and the cry I still hear.

It's been two years, but still,
I cannot soften the trill,
I'm still paying the bill,
Summoning the will,
Lacking courage to kill
Never feeling the fill
I've long cast off the frill
Still popping the pill
Still Steeming like krill
Precarious on the sill.

---

Far back in the tunnel down there,
where we were before

Two years you say since we've been back,
In truth we know it's more

Retrospection is no blessing,
What is it we would gain

Regret and agonising grief
A rehashing of pain

So spring you say is on the way
Should we set a goal

Would it help decide we're home
To once again feel whole

This tunnel is a one way trip
Not even a foot hold

It's not for faithless faint of heart
Helps too if you are bold.

Akin to seasonal cycles
Tunnels roll without choice

Above the shrill of spring time sell
I'm guided tward your voice.