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The night crackled like flare guns, the dark
blue ripped like denim
jeans you made me wear
because my knees were free. You tell me to be free
this one time, grab a Dr. Pepper (your fifth)
and tilt your chin to the sky.
You say it tastes like happiness, soda’s fizzy
giggle on your tongue. Laughter drumming in my ears.
Unsteady feet buzzing like neons. Rain.
Your last words become my first and we’re crashing together
down wet streets and evenings hasty enough that we forget
our raincoats back at home.
So this is what it means to be seventeen. Sprinting.
Each footstep bursts like a firecracker
and I swear I see sparks under your soles.
We revel in sticky hands and the crunch of aluminum cans
before our cavities grow into holes big enough to fall into
and our hearts’ eccentric incandescence fades
like chemtrails. You tell me to forget the future
and start singing the alphabet backwards.
We skid through shop-lit puddles,
untied shoelaces bouncing from side to side.
SPACE
Writer To Writer Literary Journal 