I am running.
We’re in a field and the sunlight sprinkles my auburn hair, lighting it on fire. The neighbor’s unkempt flowers are crushed beneath our feet and dust gets kicked up from your bike. We’re about to go—I don’t remember where—but it doesn’t matter because going anywhere is enough and the thought of it all makes me giddy.
I am climbing.
Up the electrical box, over the old bowling alley’s wall, and onto the roof where our small view of our small town is all we could know or want. And it’s perfect when it begins to rain. The humid mist makes the empty parking lot look like a scene from a movie. We all scream in delight as water rushes over our dirty feet. But getting off the roof is hard. I fall from the sky to the ground and it hurts. You try to catch me, which is kind. (You always try to catch me.) Maybe we’re not invincible—but then again, that theory still needs testing.
I am dancing.
We’re in a backyard somewhere near the beach—the air tastes salty, like the sweat dripping off of all of us. There is music, and laughter, and a late, loud night that leads to a quiet sunrise. You hold my hand for longer than you should, but I don’t mind. We always love the people that will leap with us—to where, it doesn’t matter because, as I’ve already told you, anywhere is enough.
I am walking.
I love meandering through the East Village, and you don’t mind because it makes me smile. We get an egg cream from the old bodega on St. Marks and eat oysters for dinner. It’s humid and the apartment doesn’t have AC but you sit with me anyways because it feels nice to be still with somebody. I stare at your eyelashes while you take a nap, and I smile at the little golden strands that catch the light.
I am crying.
It’s early in the season but too warm, so my hair is pulled into a ponytail. I walk on 7th Street, unaware of what is lurking. The darkness suddenly grabs at my cotton dress and I scream over and over again. Police lights come twelve minutes later, and then I see the cold face that felt nothing. You comfort me as I sip on a soda at 3 am, and I hold your pinky finger while the detective asks questions about that walk home. It seems we are not invincible, after all.
I am smiling.
I am walking toward you; you’re the one that I adore. It smells like roses, and there’s a line of mud on the hem of my dress. The air is heavy with Virginia's humidity. My spirit leaves my body for a moment and dances in the summer air, like a lightning bug in June. I am jealous of my own joy; I want to keep the moment in my pocket and pull it out to watch it again, and again, and again. But the sun sets, and we must move forward, forever altered. Where we go, it’s unknown, but going anywhere is enough.
I am summer.
There’s a shade of pink only New York summers know. The color illuminates the countless brick buildings of our city, turning even a dingy facade into something briefly ethereal. Rose-tinted hues reflect off of thousands of glass windows in a display of blinding brilliance, right at the cusp of darkness. But even the light is not invincible to the night that swallows it. Still, each morning, she persists.
I am old.
I don’t know if I’m alone—or maybe I’m with you? The end feels very much like the beginning, so I’m told. Ah, but it’s all the little bits in between... the dirty feet, the lightning bugs, the anywhere we went—the anywhere we’re going.
And that vibrant shade of pink.
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”