The following is a creative non-fiction assignment from the prompt: season, time of day, time of year, month, etc.

                It’s that time again. Winds are turning to breezes and cold is turning to cool. My pens are doing more daydreaming than homework. Two days after a snowfall, I’m baring shoulders and shins. Woolen caps are swapped for backward baseball hats. The click-and-whir of bicycles stretching long-sleeping chains floats through an open window. My world is waiting for spring.  Midterm study guides are quickly buried beneath things more interesting and pretty. Plans made when leaves were still falling become reality. I find myself in front of mirrors more, straps peeled from sun-starved shoulders, twisting to see the bare expanse of my back. I memorize every inch. Before summer comes I’ll have scarred it with ink.

My backpack is now home to a food diary, a “green” shopping list, and vegan recipes recommended by a lover of bacon. My car is a cemetery for empty water bottles that I keep forgetting to recycle. I’ve purged my closet and donated everything, rather than sell to the thrift shop. Paint samples polka-dot my bedroom. Boxes crammed with memories are finally condensed into easy-to-navigate scrapbooks. Seven years later, I’m finally going to say goodbye to the only boy I’ve ever actually loved. This is my spring. The time when I shatter who I was and gather the ties for the person I will become.