Fireballs, Fireworks, Fire Drills, and Fireflies

I can’t even think of a first line to fit the impression of this day,
except that I tried to impress, to burn,
every bit into my memory
before our traditions smolder out
with the bonfires we’ve built,
and the bright colors I remember
become black like charcoal.
I want to remember the

Chrome-effect red like the car that we ran around to pull a Chinese fire drill on,
and arresting red like the stoplight that held us in place,
and regular red like the color smoke bomb
that was oddly absent from the manufacturer.

Advert orange like the cans of soda we drank,
and traffic-control orange like the windsock on that still day
that unfortunately insinuated a limp penis
that somehow snuck into the background of
and sort of marred what would have been
a cute picture of me and my boyfriend cuddling.

UV yellow like the sun,
the sun, like stuffy people that, don’t get me wrong, you love to death,
but really, they just have to go before the real excitement can start,
and brand-name yellow like the box of graham crackers,
and smelly yellow like what must be sulfur;
who in the world decided to use sulfur,
to color the haze that unexpectedly covered
my entire backyard,
and glowing yellow like the fireflies, or maybe

Glowing green like the fireflies, I can’t decide which,
and lime green like the little light on the camera
before it flashed for the fiftieth time,
and well-watered green like the maintained grass we laid on and
well-worn green like the wild grass we trekked through.

Synesthetic blue like the opposite of what I was feeling,
and blue-1 like the blue raspberry ice thing from the ice cream truck,
even though blue isn’t even close to the color of raspberries,
and sky blue like…the sky, which became a deep

Dilating purple like the suburban night
that never quite goes black
and was the backdrop to the whole spectrum
exploding into fireworks and burning in the experimental fire
that flared in all the colors of the day depending on
what chemical or metal was added.

That late suburban night
I closed my eyes and tried to burn it all into my memory
where the colors all blended together
into intense magnesium white
as I mentally keep them from burning out
to charcoal darkness.

The following morning
under hot water in the shower
the shampoo bottle pops two bubbles into the air
as the steam competes with but still can't wash
the smell of orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple smoke
out of my hair.