2009

Por: Magdalena Mihaylova

Is the freedom of youth found in its intuitiveness?

The smell of chlorine and freedom lives sharp in my mind.

I could recreate our bonfire dances for you.

But how can you not remember?

It is as if July slipped away, replaced

by the intruding nudge of adulthood. I feel it on the soles of my feet:

Pavement. Burning. Solid. Neighborhood cement and chalk.

Do you remember 2009? We pretended we started a tribe of

kid bandits in the woods behind my house. My intuition told me,

there will never be another summer like this:

the old black Honda truck, cannonballs into icy blue water,

a first CD stuffed into a purple boombox.

The dream of a generation written into the knees of children.

Time capsules in our grinning cheeks. A slender youth.

My intuition tells me there will never be another summer like this.