You’re seventeen. You have glitter on your shoulders and sun kissed skin. You can smell the summer air thickening- letting it bathe you like every regret you haven’t experienced yet. You drive fast in cars with boys who almost loved you. You tell them things that feel like secrets until they’re not. Bonfire sunsets in backyards that aren’t yours. Holding hands with people that are far from strangers. Throwing your arms out windows of speeding cars for the thrill of it. Walking home before sunlight starts grazing the trees. Marmalade skies all tangled and infinite. I think that’s the last time I stared at it and let myself feel something. Before the bad things came knuckling their way through. But she is still there- she lives in my soul. Tells me I’m still okay after all these years. That I’m still brave enough to hold the things I carry without dropping. Finality never felt so real. -AMT©️