KIDS

i remember waking up at 7:30 in the morning to be the first one writing with chalk on the sidewalk. thick dusty neon chalk lining the block like an inner city mural was always the first sign of summer. you could feel it was gonna be a hot day early in the morning because you'd dunk your little head in a neighbors pool the first chance you got. you'd hear junebugs in the morning and peepers at night. we must have mapped out the old neighborhood a hundred times with checkpoints and do not cross lines. we were having too much fun to even bother peeing indoors because the neighbors bushes were just fine. miller lite's would casually disappear from the parents' coolers in the evening while we set up tents from the 70's in someones back yard. the moon would illuminate every shadow that surrounded us and eventually after ten thousand ghost stories we would fall asleep on the uneven floor of the tent. when morning came and the dew had soaked through the bottom of the tent, we'd wake up and do it all over again