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Evenings spent skygazing from a small balcony, our window to the earth.
Lost in the rosy pink like I imagine my heart must be clouds,
Tufts of cotton.
Were these moments, fixed in awe, hours or minutes?
Who’s to say

Afternoons spent baking.
So many that our oven practically preheated itself,
Whisking until our deltoids ached from fatigue.
New creations flooding from our fingertips.
Brought closer by
Simply
flour, sugar, butter, and eggs,
Were we made sugar addicts or professional bakers?
Probably the former

Three massive, brown recliners
Massively huge, massively soft.
One for each of us, but all three belonging equally to every one of us
How we’d laugh as we plopped into those X-tra Large brown marshmallows with
a *thunk*
The conversations those chairs had pried out of us.
Perhaps the physical comfort subconsciously yielding our emotional comfort too,
Laughter that I’m so sure woke the neighbors, tears that I know were reserved for our three pairs
of eyes
And no one else before or after
Philosophical discussions prompted by movies we’d just lived through together
2 hours and 30 minutes
Grievances from that day’s humiliation brought forth by
a teacher who means well
Hopes, worries, fears
By the time we left, those chairs were soaked through, seeping from our vulnerability

Songs we all came to love
Like anthems of the coming of age film I could have
sworn we were starring in
Blasted from an iPhone with
its volume to the max
Or through the speakers of a dirty, white Subaru
During
Dance parties under the moonlit, midnight sky, our bodies slicked fresh with saccharine sweat
Or drives down roads that effortlessly passed through mountains, one hand out the window
To feel the wind in between our fingers, the wind that slipped right through them like time
Bearing a reminder that this is what it is to feel alive

I close my eyes,
and it’s right there.
The feeling.
is so visceral.
No words seem completely quantifying,
The sunsets, the cookies, the chairs, the music…
I swear that I’m back, and that
I’ll open my eyes to see my two dear friends again
In the city where we shared our apartment together for 10 months only
Or were those 10 months
really a lifetime?

Tess Dimler is a second-year University of Wisconsin-Parkside student, where she studies psychology and sociology. She also participates on campus as a MOSAIC Educator, Peer Health Educator, and Library student employee.