illustration © denisserkov

Searching for old friends behind the empty docks of a suburban shopping mall, I'm rushed with nostalgia—the ghosts of comrades, the tinsel and glitter of five-and-dimes, Black Cows, Turkish Taffy, and the adolescent sparkle of 50¢ wine—Ripple and Cold Duck. The joyful tears we cried, the shadows of our childhood cast like lures, fly fishing in the streams of consciousness.

Handlebar tape and pinwheels, poker cards, slapped on spokes, make the sound of motorcycle engines and imagination—like glass tokens, they tumble into infinity, the vacant lots, sidewalk stoops and parking lots where we used to hang out. And those Coney Island mustard smothered knishes we used to love so much? They just don't taste the same anymore.

      With childhood dreams abandoned
      the footsteps of adolescence are left with the aftermath
      the grown man.