My July
I remember
the smell of the sulfur and a percieved danger that existed only in my mind. Sitting in the patchy dry grass watching the sky explode; crimsons and purples and greens, blooming like flowers and fading just as fast. The white arcs building in speed, reaching their apex, breaking apart like splintering diamonds and scattering in the wind.
I remember
the way your face looked in the light; the fireworks coloring your features with ambers and blues. I remember losing one of my first baby teeth that night; when I told you, you became convinced that I was lying, and thought the small white object I held in my palm was actually a pebble. So there I sat, poking my tongue into the gap that a tooth had previously occupied, wondering if The Tooth Fairy was on duty on the 4th of July.
I remember
the black snakes crawling across Mike's pool deck and the Pinwheel spinning, attached to the old gate, spitting it's hot white sparks in a brilliant spiral while it shrieked. The sparklers felt hot and dry in our hands as we waved them, trying to spell our names with the afterimage, while our toes slowly dipped into the pool.
