Ode to our fuckery.

I miss my friends. There was once a crew that mobbed around neighborhoods like fearless cats. Hiding from cop cars under dim streetlamps and playground slides. On a mission to go nowhere fast, we shared smokes and long-necked bottles. We laughed into the moon until we were demanded back to our beds. Dusty sidewalks cratered with our footprints, we grazed back and forth from park to parking lot. Days we were “going to the movies” we spent giggling with florescent vodka stuck to our smiles. “Can I get 10 bucks for the movies mom” “Yeah, okay. What are you guys seeing?” “It’s a scary one, you wouldn’t like it.”

Scary like blacking out or puking more than once. But exciting like remembering to bring the speaker that elevated our journey through the burbs by a thousand. Loiter squad kids in dirty chucks wandering never wanting to be bothered with the stale divorced smell of home.

I fucking miss my friends. We were quite seriously the coolest kids living in those beige houses. Drunk with the fizzling ecstasy dancing on our lobes. The blue one begged us to touch everything in sight. We were trying to feel something and we fucking scratch that itch a hundred times over those last four years of kidhood. “Bitch, do a cartwheel!” “Gimme a head massage dude, I’ll give you one right after.” “Goddamnit, I fucking love you. You’re my best fucking friend and the love of my life, don’t forget that!” Dark silly wild angels floating through time. It’s been years and my dear friends retell stories of nights in the dark I can’t make complete shape of anymore. I tasted and gulped those nights but they lingered on my tongue for only weeks at a time. We had a lot of partying to do those last years to soak each other up like growing babies in warm baths.

It was good to be the other me sometimes. Not someone else, just vibrating on a clearer frequency. Sometimes, on a really good roll, you know exactly what you want. No hesitation or overthought. A blissful brainwave swoops you up and it’s all laughter, chatter, and peace.

The summer we came home with one year of college beneath our loins set ablaze 19 years of horny. One of us had an empty house with parents living miles away. The two-story was blessed unto us rowdy jackasses, ready to paint the walls with beer and skate the ceiling. “Are you serious, your mom said you can live here by yourself?” “Yeah, man! They live with my grandparents now and they’re not trippin’ on me.” “Yo, I’m never leaving this house, bury me here with that Four Loko can as grave marker.” And somedays it felt like we never would. Our working parents missed us but we could not be found. “Yeah mom, I ate. We’re just having a sleepover cuz the breakup has been really hard for her. I’ll call you in the morning. Love you.” The white and black lies slipped out of our mouths with smoke. We were busy trying to fuck silly wet memories into the backs of our heads.

There’s something comfortable about hooking up with a homie. A dirty fingernailed boy who knows you like to talk shit and dance on chairs. He cannot deny how curious he is about the body under that small top. He knows you’re a show-off deep down who’d like wriggle for you and the have you in her mouth. Bruh you’re a babe, you were fun. Fun for a time or three then back to playing cards and flinging white orbs across the table. I think my friends raised me. They showed me truth, depths of loyalty and obliterated my self-hate at times. Hugging with slippery noodle arms, we loved each other so. That summer was the last time I’d been home to the empty green hills for more than four days. Nothing stays the same. Some of the kids we loved have passed into the past. Some of us have since let go of the phone lines that linked us. Some who stayed still kick it but in different corners than before. Some have long since gone to stay in another set of hills. Hills with bus line webs, bay windows, skyscrapers, and filthy sidewalks.

But that’s ok, the trees and swings were there to witness our closeness. To witness our dizzy adolescent miracles.