this summer,

[greatleaps]

I want sleepless nights and hazy sunrises, pale-faced from forgetting to breathe and emaciated because the world is too beautiful to stop running. I want a whirlwind romance that screams and throws me down hillsides, keeps me awake just to share the sunshine and fails to take deeper root. I want it to end with a passionate crawl down a city sidewalk that glows too brightly to be real, and when it's over I want to curl up on the trampoline and wait for the owls to come comfort me. I want to be everything they told me not to be, break every rule because it's my last chance to show that small town what manic looks like. Wake up as the fog burns off and scrape my mosquito-bitten body into an upright position, chew an ice cube and wash my hair in lawn sprinklers. Stock up only to lay waste, wasting away as my hand-sewn seams unravel and then watch a Jimmy Stewart marathon with my father. We'll drink the lemonade we make ourselves and keep the cats stoned on our stash of home-grown catnip. At the end of the night I'll take my bicycle to the streetlights, dance for rain under the starlight and collapse promptly at 3pm because 4 is an ugly number that should be slept through.

My only precaution will be spf 60 and my only regret will be not owning a time machine.