Song

You share a cool beer in the back of a bus. And she is sitting there, looking at you and you have no idea what to do. So you take another sip and soak in the summer heat along with her hair and her eyes.

And this is summer.

This is when you remember that one song that takes you back to your most triumphant summer. The one moment where you did that one thing that everyone will still be talking about when school starts again. The thing that got you that one kiss with that one girl who made all the other girls seem plane.

And now we listen to this song on repeat because it reminds us of our Dad's as they were when they still wore capes. It reminds us when sidewalk chalk was the only form of communication and the alias for sprinklers was Heaven.

It takes you to that time when everything was better and when 'simple' defined the majority of who we were.

And it brings back the smell of cookies and sunscreen that our mother's smothered on us at public pools. And how at the end of the day, all greasy and covered in summer filth, our mom's would still run their fingers through our hair. And we would fall asleep on top of our sheets because the heat was too much.

And this is summer.

It's that bubble of time that encapsulates that one home run that made your dad stand up and yell and cheer. And that one sno-cone after that game and how it was the best of your life solely because you ate it atop your dad's shoulders. It's the song that was playing in the car on the ride home and the open windows and the look in your dad's eye. That look that made you feel like he was twelve again and that it wasn't you who hit the home run, but him.

It's humidity so thick that you choke. So thick that you can grab the air. It makes you look as though you just got out of a pool without ever having actually taken the plunge. And it is the warm, moist hug that she gives you on her parents doorstep when you were expecting so much more.

But it's also seeing her look out of her top story window at you as you walk home, down the street, through your yard. And you realizing that this; this one summer, these few fleeting months will change who you are. They will become a memorial of summer history unto which you will worship with envy every summer form there on.

And this is summer.

This is life.

This is fleeting.

And this is...us.