Summer’s a Sneaky B**ch (Revisionist Shakespeare – Sonnet 5 for Gen X)

Those hours that made those sweet, easy faces
Will wreck them hard with time’s relentless grip;
What’s lovely now gets chewed up by its own damn pace,
And every bright day starts to come apart and slip.

For never-resting Time keeps pushing through
And takes the bloom right out of every fine thing;
What was all glow and heat gets worn down, too,
Till beauty’s just a memory on a tired old string.

Then summer’s lease runs out, no matter the pose,
And winter barges in like it owns the place;
The sap goes cold, the whole damn garden slows,
And every flower loses its damnable grace.

So save the juice while the good stuff’s still alive—
Or time will flat-out ruin what you tried to preserve.