Remember:
lemon-licked lips
and sun-freckled cheeks,
that sweating at the ping pong table in your backyard kind of friendship.
Melting vanilla ice cream between the crevices of our fingers
while the sky slips away, fireflies and echoes of clouds.
Viscid with heat,
we float
on grassy seas, all bruised knees and messy braids.
I wonder,
would you shed your skin for me?
Give me a glimpse
of the sun swallowed between your ribs,
the moon nestled in the hollow of your neck,
the syzygy cradled in your buttercup palms.
Perched like magpies on a shingled rooftop,
I constellate the light
and promise its spillage around your pinky finger.
Listen, I insist,
in the future,
when silver striates our plaits
and milken cataracts film our irises,
remember,
the solstice furrowed in the still-soft dimples of your cheek,
the singing of ping pong balls across your wooden table,
the bittersweet lemonade spilling from our teeth. Please,
remember,
we were magic once.
lemon-licked lips
and sun-freckled cheeks,
that sweating at the ping pong table in your backyard kind of friendship.
Melting vanilla ice cream between the crevices of our fingers
while the sky slips away, fireflies and echoes of clouds.
Viscid with heat,
we float
on grassy seas, all bruised knees and messy braids.
I wonder,
would you shed your skin for me?
Give me a glimpse
of the sun swallowed between your ribs,
the moon nestled in the hollow of your neck,
the syzygy cradled in your buttercup palms.
Perched like magpies on a shingled rooftop,
I constellate the light
and promise its spillage around your pinky finger.
Listen, I insist,
in the future,
when silver striates our plaits
and milken cataracts film our irises,
remember,
the solstice furrowed in the still-soft dimples of your cheek,
the singing of ping pong balls across your wooden table,
the bittersweet lemonade spilling from our teeth. Please,
remember,
we were magic once.
Dana Blatte is a 16-year-old from Massachusetts. Previously, her work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, NaNoWriMo's Young Writer's Program, and the Pulitzer Center. An aspiring author, illustrator, and polyglot, Dana dreams in magical realism, oil paint, and Mandarin.