summer

A life is time, they teach us growing up
The seconds ticking killed us all
A million years before the fall

To me, this song is summer.

I am 14, sitting shotgun in the car my sister has just learned to drive. We are going to the beach. Her friends are in the back. I can't yet drive, clearly, but I'm excited enough to have a sister who can.

The music is turned up, the windows are rolled down, and one of my legs is half-way out the car window, my foot dangling over the side mirror. I expect her to yell at me, but she doesn't. We are singing with every ounce of ourselves, as if we understand all of the singer's angst and suffering, his philosophical ponderings, and what the lyrics actually mean.

You swim like lions through the crest
And bathe yourself on zebra flesh