Between you and me, I’m already carrying this summer around with me as a keepsake. And missing it as it still lingers in the air.

This is the kind of summer that our teenage daydreams were made of, masked in a nostalgic cherry-colored aura. The kind of summer your eight-year-old self would pray upon in the moments you needed god the most.

This is that kind of summer that deserves your presence. The one that the child inside of you needed.

So slow down,

                                  take a look around you.

Don’t you see?

                                 there’s romantic magic dancing

                                                                                                everywhere.

Pay attention to the symptoms: The lazy Sunday, no-agenda mornings you get to savor alongside your mother, paired with a side of lipstick rimmed coffee cups as you gossip over just enough stories about your love life to make your pulse quicken. And then you laugh and say well that’s my cardio for the day!

I wish the younger me had prayed with a little more precision. Because when I asked for a lover-girl summer—let’s just say, God heard me loud and clear.

He arrives like a sweet, insistent craving—made of peaches and mangos—ripe and impossible to ignore. It’s the kind of pull that feels like muscle memory, as if some things were always meant to stain you.

And I ask: Can this love be enough of a revolutionary act?

It’s deafeningly dreamy and it’s funny like that;

initially,  it’s a sour head-about-to-explode type of ear melting tart taste,

then comes the real jolt at the end: sharply sweet. Definite.

Oh, you’re hooked—

then the days, thaw out, they bleed into each other, and you realize,

you’re not 17 anymore—

neither is Mr. October Eyes.

Which begs my question: do we really get over anything; like this summer?

It’s the gathering around the pool with friends and family, as the classic rock station blares in the background. It’s the scent of ribs on the grill, citrus lime mists in the chlorine air, mingling with our belly laughter. It’s the place where midnight margaritas are served alongside goodbye kisses on the cheek…

Tell me— am I dreaming?

It’s the Doc Martin and baggy Levi’s shorts, with a bikini top as the top type of summer. It’s the desert dusk, where the promise of summer rain hangs so near you swear you can almost taste it type of summer. It’s the freeway, windows down, exhaling thick, hot air as the summer eclectic playlist roar from the speakers type of summer. Our laughter, waving out of the windows—into the wild universe; about to burst like huge droplets of rain on the windshield type of summer.

Since Mr. October Eyes was reluctantly absent from June’s presence, it seems Fourth of July is our chance to see if we’re still teenagers at heart. The irony there isn’t lost on me.

Will I see those eyes again, and melt alongside my orange creamsicle? Will my heart fall out of me, then land right in front of you? This love is a yearning only the summer could bring— the kind that makes you stumble over your own foot, as you cross your fingers that no one saw.

I sense my inner teenager’s heart will be a guiding force this weekend. This summer is meant exclusively for her— summer kisses that taste like cherry limeade and laughing attacks at Sonic that could cure all her problems. Her nightcap… or her kryptonite.

Come closer—kiss the mouth of a feverish, heart-eyed 17-year-old girl, her dreamy head tipped toward the July moon, mascara smudged, tears falling freely—proof that she’s alive.

Tonight, I feel the earth’s pulse beneath me as I spin like Stevie Nicks’ wild angel, wrapped under the warm blanket of this Texas summer.