Sunset tinges the yard in grapefruit hues, sculpting our faces thin with light and shadow. While lounging on your balcony, we discuss this malleable stage of our lives over glasses of limoncello and orange slices. Existing as the pulpy rind dividing adolescent yearning and mellow stability, our futures have yet to be carved into tangible plans. It’s an acquired skill, juggling routine requirements with passions and social interactions. The night prior, a stranger at the club bought us a round of lemon drops. While sneaking off to the dance floor, we briefly forgot about sour seeds of existential doubt wedged between our teeth. Like those aromatic peels we now pinch to limonene spritz, our ripened potential is subject to ignite at any second.

Some swollen days, all it takes is a mourning dove sigh

punctuating songbird conversation to be dragged back

into the past. Before the internet craze grasped fleeting

attention spans by the reins, we navigated our routines

through chlorine-inflamed gazes, the bare soles of our

feet scorched on sun-licked surfaces. Skin muddled in

concrete scrapes, grass stains, and ankle bruises gifted

by our Razor scooter races through the neighborhood,

we bit our lips while our mothers cleansed our wounds

with hydrogen peroxide and slapped on band-aids that

sported our favorite cartoon characters. Cheerful tunes

ricocheted down the street, children flocking through

their yards for a taste of bomb pop ice and SpongeBob

shaped abominations. We braided dandelion bracelets,

trading sips of mud potions in cupped palms. The days

stretched long, but they were gone before we knew it.

Or so we thought. Those summers never faded out of

existence. It was us that changed, swept away by busy

routines demanding our attention. On humid weekends

when evening dims to dusk, I sit out alone in the yard

and close my eyes. The cicadas still hum like they did

when we were kids. Mosquitoes still bite. Fireflies still

flicker among the trees. Moths still seek artificial light.

It rains harder these days than I remember, smothering parched soil with relief that it once prayed for. The mosquitoes peel off of my bite-swollen thighs, flocking to fresh puddles to breed. Maybe I’m not as sweet as I used to be. My mom used that excuse while slathering tender spots of skin with antihistamine cream. Of course—better to blame my saccharine tendencies than culprits with zero remorse. Back then, I let them get away with it while chasing fireflies, cupping their blinker bodies in grimy palms and kissing them goodbye. Those nights stretched forever and wispy, candy floss clouds indecisive of which hues to leave behind in their memory. I don’t recall much from that age, just that the clouds cried less and my eyes rained more. The bugs sucked me dry, every last ounce of vulnerability. These days, I light incense on the porch out back, trading sips of sour beer with the blood-suckers that have squirmed their way through small tears in the screen. I won’t satisfy their thirsty greed, not anymore at least.