The summer is memories

Of chalked drawings and hopscotch squares

I still find it under my nails

Thin layer of dust in pastels

Crammed under, compacted

With summers of my childhood

Reduced to hieroglyphs

Incomplete scribbles, a broken language

Of friendships long forgotten

And places long lost

I can’t help but feel regret

For I was willing to reduce my childhood

To nothing more than chalked reminders

Beneath my nails