Choking on Wisconsin Blizzards

summer takes over and we spend the next three months urgently packing as much life as we can into our brief summer heat

because we’ve been drowning in snow banks and we’ve been choking on blizzards,

wisconsin winters freeze us over and i swear i'm like a flower when the ice hits,

i die only to return when i see it fit, when the sun kisses warmth onto my back,

when i can feel the heat on my eyelids as i put my face to the sky and see the red glow from the other side

i want to move somewhere where the snow will never touch me, i want to go outside coatless everyday and all year long, no layers to weigh me down,

but i think something would be missing, there would be silence where i once heard orange and yellow leaves crinkling beneath my feet,

the city would be too loud at night where there was once snow overflowing off of roofs and out of yards, clinging to every barren branch and muffling every sound,

there would be no army of emerging dandelions for that one week in june, reaching for the sky for the first time in a year, eager to taste the sun,

it would be quiet where there once stood a hall of grade school kids zipping up coats and sliding on boots to go play outside in december,

there wouldn’t be any threats waiting for that first person to complain about the summer sun, because would you really rather it be forty below?

and my house would never shake with the force of five snow plows driving by in an hour during the biggest snow storm of the year,

and i would never taste that first breath of the changing air, when the breeze turns crisp in fall or when the earth starts to unthaw for spring and you can smell the season coming your way.

what if i grew bored of short sleeves and cicadas screaming every day?

and what if i start to miss cycling through the seasons like clockwork, the feeling of them each returning like an old friend?

what do i do when i need everything to change and stay the same?