This isn’t a competition. It’s a celebration.

My body remembers the salt sweet of summer. Relief of the ice cream truck singing its siren from several blocks away. Digging quarters out of the communal change jar. Popsicles melting down sun-slick elbows. Remembers the perfume of July. Long grass and thick weeds lapped behind knees and ears. Sizzle skin stuck to the basketball pole if you left a limb on black metal for too long.

Near the end of his life, my grandfather lost his language, then gained his mother tongue. A fewmonths after dementia had taken all but his childhood

Betta FishMy senior year of high school, I pulled a betta fish from a bag. Licorice candy scales reflecting through the glass. An exercise in incorporating an object into a speech: just keep swimming. I tried to return the fish to the teacher, but she told me it was mine. On freedom's cusp, I did not want even the weight of a small creature.