A Summer Fling with New York City 

by Maddie DePuy

June hands you a glass of welcome punch, sunshine in a crystal flute, and you do, you welcome the era of elevated trains, the season of Far Rockaway and deep Queens and taking the Q over the Brooklyn bridge just because you can, because it’s more beautiful than not. You’ve waited for this, the season of lingering stars and lingering glances. Bodega air conditioners that whir and children that run through the streets like little fevers. Terrace parties that swing like strands of paper lanterns and salted lime wedge rims in the west village and doesn’t it feel like everything is on the edge of something? This is that very human season, veins of strawberry ice cream on pavement, sweat and sunscreen on the ferry rails and oh-its-only-20-blocks-lets-walk yellow sandal blisters. Even though you complain, you know you love it. This is the festering season or the bursting one, the boiling or the simmering, maybe it’s the crackling season, bonfires or pop rocks or thumping disco glitter. The rush of drinking tequila on the 44th floor, the way everything just melts. The way Brooklyn sky fizzes like Aperol, the way it whispers “maybe this will be the one”. Maybe this is the summer you feel especially vibrant, maybe this summer feels like years instead of 100 days, maybe this is the summer you’ll remember, maybe this August you will learn that love doesn’t waver like air above blacktop, maybe you’ll get a sweltering lesson on permanence by September, maybe it will be years and years from now and you will look back and say oh, that summer.