Remember me

It is summer and I am looking into the full length mirror in my bedroom admiring my slightly bloated stomach in my underwear. By admiring I mean I love it, and by I love it I mean I do not love it despite, I love it because. I do not think about anyone else and as the corners of my mouth turn up I run my fingers across my skin and feel like a woman with a body that is entirely hers. It is summer and I am on shrooms, topless, running on the boardwalk at night with my t shirt ribboning in the air behind me like a patriotic flag; the patriot is me, and I am also the country; my hair is silk and my body is ten years old again. Later I lie in bed and my stomach begs for gravol but my head sinks into the pillow like a smooth pebble in a stream and at the bottom of the riverbank is the hope that I will not forget that night. It is summer and I am swimming in the lake where the water is perfectly cold and the sky looks like cotton candy. I am right next to the city and I feel defiant: each stroke of my arm carves out serenity while the cityscape waves hello and says, remember me. My friend laughs at me as she bobs up and down from treading water and my body lightens. It is summer and I complain loudly in the back kitchen about rude customers with the other girls at the restaurant and I watch as their bodies sync with their emotions, one hip jutting out, shoulders sinking, hands fluttering in ways that would be unseemly in front of house. One of the girls tells me she loves my ponytail as we eat leftover tres leches from the same bowl. And when the male customer touches my waist I think about how I will later run a fingernail across the receipt of a large tip and wink as the other girls crowd around me, holding the chit in front of them like a fine jewel. It is summer and I do not remember to thank my body but it thanks me. With cherry stained fingers the boy tells me he loves my body. So I tie a knot with a cherry stem, hold it between my teeth, and grin as I tell him that I love it more.