Snapple

There’s a Snapple on the general store roof.

There’s been one there for quite a while. About three years.

Must be nasty by now.

It’s going to be my turn to drink it next year.

Because I’m a boy,

and every year a new boy drinks the Snapple.

That’s just the dare;

the rule;

the one we made up, just like all the rest.

I imagine that it’ll taste of Capture the Flag,

of angry, sweaty, summer days,

of cool, bright, barefoot midnights full of nursed black eyes and

beds of parked trucks,

and my head will spill over with all the memories and mold,

And I’ll vomit out old tears.

Someday that old store’ll be torn down.

No more roofs to throw drinks onto when we’re bored.

But for right now,

There’s a Snapple on the roof.