Summertime, what is summertime, when you’ve lived a good long life, felt thousands of generations of your species pass through you, when you feel old beyond your years, only energised when your marionette/puppet self is picked up and played with by others?

What is summertime when you work the midnight shift, sleeping all day, the weather a matte background on the stage of life?

What is summertime when you’re standing in awe outside a batcave whilst thousands of flying mammals exit the cave and a mother next to you chats on her smartphone complaining about her life to a friend, simultaneously yelling at her kids to be careful, caring nothing about the swirl of bats heading toward open waters?

Her reality is not my reality, our view of summertime completely different.

I avoid others when I’m unhappy and unable to pretend to be happy without the aid of alcoholic beverages.

I know that being the life of the party costs my mental health when I’m alone again, aware of the shakes and shivers of stage fright taking its toll on my wellbeing after entertaining others, my puppet strings slack.