Those songs playing again and again, 
drifting lazily through open windows,
the car stereo, your smiling, whistling neighbor.
The ones replayed too many times,
the ones you never really liked all that much,
but you swore you'd never wipe them from your mind.
The candle with the smell of summer,
of love and laughter and lonely cries,
the one that just smells like cuts and music,
the one that reminds you of the tan,
zebra striped sheets and late nights awake,
turning the pages of another book
and playing with drippy blue wax.
Tan, bare feet hanging out the car window,
dangling in front of the rear view mirror
as you sing to those same songs.
Red bull and React gum,
the black kind that will forever remind you
of last summer,
the kind you'll taste months later
and be taken straight back to days on the beach,
nights with friends, by yourself,
just drinking in the shaved legs and midnight talks
and inu449 Youtube videos,
the suntan lotion and sand between your toes,
 and the feeling of pure July sliding through your veins.
Banana popsicles and too many unsent letters,
humid air so thick you could swim through it,
just hoping for winter.
Sun on your eyelids, at an hour much too late for sleeping.
Decorated with bug bites and cuts and fake tattoos,
the ones you put on with your best friend in a movie theater bathroom,
the butterfly tramp stamp before you saw that movie,
the one that'll make you think of last summer.
It's just how it is,
and this year'll be the same.
Maybe a bit less innocent,
maybe a little more deceit, a few more lies,
but it should be
a hell of a time.