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it hasn’t been this warm since my hair was long and it feels like the sun planned it out perfectly — to bake our skin gently while the wind swept us up like kite tails in the sky and there must’ve been a lot of wind during my year-long leave because you’ve been smoothed out and leveled, furnished by the elements into a fully-formed man. you have entire ecosystems in your clearwater eyes, teeming with the blue innocence of adolescence and spilling stories without speaking a word. we look less alike now, you and i. in fact, i look like the younger cousin but I don’t really mind. four hours have never fallen through my hands more quickly than they did that easter sunday. placing half empty beer cans behind parked cars and poisoning our ears with trashy tunes while the sun said its irish goodbye and dipped behind the mountaintops of midwestern houses — those moments are transient dandelion seeds that drift without notice in the bustle of life. but i think i’ll find those tiny seeds — i’ll pick them up off the overgrown grass and take them to my grave if poetry really counts for something. because i want to remember the sun on my face and how disheveled we got with the car windows down. i want to remember before we grow old and can only look back with a wrinkled smile more fleeting than that lovely april afternoon.
My name is Sarah Butkovic, and I received my BA in English from Dominican University in May of 2021 and recently received my MA in English from Loyola University Chicago. Ray Bradbury is my most frequent literary muse as well as my favorite author.
Brilliant and beautiful