it's the way we idolize things only after they're gone,
the way we grieve deeper than we love.
childhood ends slowly,
and then all at once.
i was seven years old when my mother
woke me up at 3 a.m.,
pulled all the blankets and pillows out from the closet,
and dragged me to the front yard to watch the meteor shower.
we laid parallel,
and she pointed to the sky and showed me the constellations,
and i nodded and tried hard to remember each of them.
it was april but the grass was cold and dewy
and i reminisce on the memory
almost as if a dream.
i miss the days my mother was free.
it doesn't feel like
the world we are living in now
is the same one in which
my brother and i would fight over who had to
run across an acre of land
to cut fresh basil from the garden for dinner.
now when i come home,
we bicker about politics and philosophy at bedtime
and convince ourselves that these conversations
are more important than peace.
nothing feels sacred anymore.
sometimes i just want to sit perched
on the kitchen island
while my mother bakes brownies
and wait to lick the batter off the spatula.
sometimes I just want to sit outside
in the sweet, humid air,
cicadas abuzz,
and relish the thick of summer.
