Screen Door Summers

Dusty and distraught the afternoon laid out like a sun-shaped jewel ahead of us. Our marble eyes will fill up with salty tears and the rivers will swell until they drown the glittering meadows in madness. Our screen door summers will be like shattered blue china and so we will trudge through the day lilies and clementines alongside the infinite stretches of powerlines that run the hillsides. We are the late bloomers and the daydreamers. The ding dong ditchers and the hide and seekers. The hopscotchers and leap froggers. Living among the star magnolias and mimosas. Our sun drenched world was full of fragrant bursts of flowers and pink clusters of fluff. Spongy moss and delicate wisps of grass served as our place to nap, right there below the copper stained sunsets. Take me back to the days we poured cherry soda over our vanilla ice cream and crunched on crushed ice. The evenings we gathered sticks to burn as defense against the insects and mosquitoes. There was never an issue with illness and that was all thanks to the tablespoon of apple cider vinegar we consumed daily. The best stories were told while sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch. We chased chicken hawks like wild hyenas and made up our own special calls whenever we lost each other in the woods. It seems we all lost track of time during all those fights and parties and birthdays and graduations and baby showers and weddings. It seems all we have left of those days are photographs and scars. Maybe even a little heartache. But one thing is for sure, we left our mark.