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 power lines 
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.



Speed Demons

I live for that feeling of complete 
weightlessness, when we speed 
down back roads lined with 
corn fields and rolling grasslands 
that stretch all the way to the foot 
of the mountains. 

I would tighten my arms around his waist 
as the speedometer touched 140mph. 
We zoomed through the darkness like 
screaming demons on two wheels. 
The sky peeled away like a panoramic 
screen unraveling past us. 

I drank up the crisp air, I saturated 
myself in adrenaline like a junkie. 
It was just the two of us, phantoms 
of the night, spirits of the asphalt, 
our souls aligning with the road beneath us. 

No one could possibly catch us. 
Dedicated to the ride, locking pinky 
promises with the highways and 
interstates, always swearing to return, 
to meet again with the meditative route. 

To me this is much more than a form 
of transportation, it's a lifestyle, a way 
to soak up your pure bliss, a form of 
peace and harmony. 
It's being born to ride.