Sometimes, late at night, when I leave my friend’s house on a summer night. I let the windows down and the outside world smells so fresh. The tree in my front yard gives me life. Sometimes, late at night, when I leave my friends house on a summer night, and I’m walking all alone my town smells like a tire. And its so thick I can’t breathe. Sometimes when I come home and it’s really late I still come to this screen to pound it all out ..s that are voiceless without me. I just want to remember it. I just want to look back on it and remember the smell of tires. Tonight is that night. I walk home and my town smells like that tire. Burned out on asphalt. Work in the morning at some wonderful pottery store and exhaustion surfaces in my eyes. I watch the rings on my fingers go up and down to the songs of summer. Night one-night two of summer eighteen. A fire to accompany my expectations and friends jumping into a pool with a pin holed black blanketed sky. Best friends laying on the trampoline and good God I can’t believe we’ve made it this far. I was curled up in a ball right by that fire. I watched everyone. I watched every single one of you. I was curled up in a ball. Like I was last year and the year before. Sometimes, late at night, I wonder if I’ll ever see these people again. I wonder if we’ll care next fall when the leaves start to change and we all tuck eachother away. My town is empty past midnight and late at night, like tonight my friends are the only ones on the streets. We’re the only ones alive. Sometimes, late at night, when I leave my friend’s house on a summer night I let my windows down and let my hand be a hawk and I pretend that I’m flying somewhere new to another kid’s town with a fire and a bunch of their friends who can’t help but dream big. Night one, Night two, morning three of summer eighteen. I got five thousand ideas, twenty bucks, and too many broke friends. So we’re around this fire. Eating whatever is in our parents cabinets. We’re in the living room playing video games waiting to grow up and hating it all the same. Now I got five hundred thousand ideas, 10 bucks, and too many broke friends. I have room for a few more. Sometimes this is what I think about when I smell the tire, I call sidewalk, I call best friends, I call home.
The laundry room next to me is a low hum. The creaking as i put this chair on two legs. I lean back and think about it all. I remember the first week of summer when I told myself that my town was like the smell of a tire and fresh cut grass. I swore I was convinced. This is what I want. These are the friends I want. This is what I had, have, will need, want, give, take. Just take. I thought I'd fall in love with July, like I fell in love with you two summers ago. This is it now. No French Creek, no fires, no drums, no real friends. I write too much. No tires, no streets, no pens, no paper, just freedom with no one to share it with. Work. Day in, day out. More than I can swallow. Like 11 little tablets to get rid of these headaches that I can't shake off. Four a.m. and I'm sitting at stop lights on the ramp next to the old Dairy Mart, which is vacant. Four a.m. and I watch the streetlights click to different colors. No cars. No one. Nothing. I had a best friend in seventh grade we used to throw dresses on my ceiling fan and watch them spin around. Same keys. Different songs with more Em Am. Different songs with less G C D lets love forever. More power power power chords with I can't go a night without it. Less G Fsharp D Em. I just want something that makes me feel. I swear the water looked prettier last year, it was the most beautiful thing i'd ever seen, or maybe that's just because my best friend thought the same. Thought he'd be happy if he could make it last forever. Maybe it's because no one really told me they thought it was beautiful this year. Good God. I hope it wasn't a waste. I never got to swim. I never got to breathe. I ate a lot of food, bought a lot of clothes, and did a lot of shopping. I just wanted my guitar, I just wanted something old, I just wanted a circle of my friends on a summer night with handdrums and spoons and acoustics and Corey's voice that had no fear. I'm so afraid. I just wanted to smell like smoke and sleep on the ground. I just wanted to take freezing cold showers and complain the whole way. I just want last summer back.
