Summer Morning All the Same

By Sahana Prabu

Posted on September 6, 2026

Cover Image Title: Rainbow Showers

Cover Image by: Nathan Savone

Classification: Photography

Specifications: Resized from 4032 x 3024 pixels

Year: 2026

I define beginnings as a fertile mid-summer

Tis’ when the world goes soft, edges blurring in the drown of summer rain

For my mother, beginnings are triptychs scared into tryptichs

My first breath, my sister’s birth, my leaving to college

The difference between the suitcases lining the hallway 

and the snap of my glasses

Is merely my free will and my mother’s fear of not being able to mend

this universe that is in love with falling apart

So i’ve learned to pull the smile out of my chin

And strive for one certainty a day

I set alarms for her to sleep earlier

So she can wake with the same morning summer in her eyes: 

we might finally belong to a future without the ache

When I tell her this, her laughter begins with a fissure and curls like a question

Description: 

I think what I had in mind when I wrote this poem was merely a confession about growing up and the unspoken feeling of leaving home. I put together numerous metaphors and images that came to mind. Truthfully, these images and metaphors only made sense to me after I finished writing the last few lines of this poem. The hardest part about leaving your loved ones for another milestone is probably watching them watch you leave. I think this is what makes me the most fragile as a person as well. 

[ Writing Editor: J.Y. ]