Those afternoons where we'd felt like nothing could touch us again.
Sumner haze and throwing mown grass at each other, faces chubby and pink and elated.
And we'd sit, giggling, wind in our sales and hair.
Watching each other out of the corners of our eyes and catching ourselves with a snort of laughter.
We learned every lyric to Bohemian Rhapsody that afternoon, do you remember?
Singin' mama at the top of your lungs and putting me on the top of the world.
Ready to show every person in our little corner just what we could do.
And you told me about your dreams that day,
While I practiced my air guitar solos. Running my hands through my newly cropped hair.
Those afternoons gave us a new sense of freedom.
Last day of school, fresh out of year 7, and we knew we'd be going places. We were rockstars. We were astronauts. Time travellers. Gangsters. Pirates. Whatever beautiful, fantastical whim took our fancies.
The world was in our hands that day.
Any way the wind blows.
I'd ask you what your favourite words were and you'd laugh at me, but I'd only poke you back. It was dessimate of course. We only ever spoke in references no one else would understand.
Our lives had just begun and there was no way we'd thow away our shots.
I'd leave it all behind in a heartbeat, to be back there with you. To see you laugh like that again. And be able to just be. For one moment.
To be innocent. Naive and vulnerable and happy. To have faith. In myself. To be so sure again. Back when nothing really mattered.
And though they did grow there, we never actually sat under those willow trees.