summer skies and cigarette clouds.

I always thought that the grandeur of the first great teenage love was a concept too deeply shrouded by the naivety of youth. But it is only now that I understand that it is the same naivety harbored in young love that makes for it's grand appeal. 

I never thought I'd truly experience love at the age of eighteen, let alone understand the intricacies that entail the very delicate thread that connects people, like the one that connected the two of us this summer that has passed.

Ever since I was young, summer was a gateway to new experiences, new skills that I could pick up that would slowly shape who I was to become in the months that would follow. Be it hours with an instrument, or simple days under the Sun unraveling thoughts I couldn't make sense of in the past, these experiences shaped who I was to be. This summer was no different.

I always thought love would come my way when I was much older, much wiser, with knowledge of who I was and who I needed. It is only now do I realize that love has no prerequisites, it can emerge like a solitary flower that blooms in Autumn. 

It makes sense now, when I hear people recant tales of how love seemed to hit them in the most unsuspecting of ways, in the most unsuspecting of times. For me, it was when we were in a stranger's empty swimming pool that smelled strongly of chlorine and cigarettes as we laid under the mid day Sun with sweat on our brows as we adorned lazy smiles on our cheeks that were the slightest shade of pink due to the summer's unforgiving heat and cheap vodka we had drank straight out of the bottle. 

It was a simple thing, really. Two kids, slightly inebriated and not one bit inhibited, sitting by each other, arms barely grazing with their eyes tracing the cigarette smoke that escaped their lips dancing against the backdrop of a clear blue summer sky. Somehow, that mundane moment seemed to be fitting for what I know now as the start of my grand story of young love.

We had met at a time of transience in both our lives, during the start of the summer before we both would be off for college, where we would be faced with the challenge of embracing the unfamiliar face of adulthood that eagerly awaited us. I think it was our mutual fear to be free of the constraints of youth that drew us to one another. In him I saw the same fears that followed me like my shadow, and in me, he saw the inhibitions that clouded his mind. Slowly, over the summer we untangled those inhibitions and fears in one another, for one another, too afraid and unwilling to help ourselves. 

It started off slow, at first. But even the greatest of fires can erupt from the most minute of sparks. Somewhere between sober kisses and immature drunken philosophy, we forged a bond unlike any others I had in the past. Unbridled by expectation for the future, we could savor every bit of what we shared.

Together, we experienced many kinds of highs. The ones that stemmed from the tips of badly rolled joints that needed to be set alight, to the ones from the tips of our tongues that led to more carnal fires being lit. Like most things that go up too high but not high enough, we came crashing back down.

Soon the end of summer had arrived and there was no amount of weed or sex that could distract us from the inevitability of its end. It was an unspoken understanding, really. We shared a pack of cigarettes one last time, in a place I can't quiet remember as we silently wished each other well and looked up for the last time as silken smoke escaped our lips and danced with each other against a sky that suddenly seemed a lot less blue.

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