August. Again.

August settles in like a sad cloud. Not an interesting cloud, not a dark cloud. A sad cloud. It's just gray, and it blocks the sun. There's no rain with it, it doesn't move with the breeze. There is no breeze. It just sticks, like the sticky film that defines August air in the southern summer. And that sticky, boring, useless gray cloud hovers.

I'd like to note that it doesn't smother anymore.

Four years ago it suffocated and smothered me.

Three years ago it smothered me.

Two years ago, even, it still smothered me.

Last year it was an angry, unpredictable, highly volatile and dark storm cloud.

This year, it just hovers.

When I picture a hovering, gray cloud, I see myself on an early morning run along a quiet road, fields on both sides laced with fog. It's enough to make me stop and gaze. Suspended in time and the run forgotten, I hear my quick breaths and the chirps of birds and I listen as the world keeps turning.

August. Forever makes me stop, I get suspended in time and I see his smile. I hear the laughter and simplicity of this former life I lived. I feel my head against his chest and the way his arms embraced me. I forget that he isn't really there anymore.

The memories fade into the fog. But the hovering gray cloud, and the world keeps turning. Soon the fog will burn off but the gray will remain. And that gray won't release it's relentless gaze until I get past that anniversary day and I no longer have memories of my last days with you.

August. Maybe one day the sun will shine during this month again.