how to explain the way music moves

through my brain and my blood and my bones.

Doesn’t make me want to dance like Darry, though.

Makes me want to move inside the story the song

is telling me. Makes me

want to live there

always.

Makes me want to feel all the things

all the happy

and even the sadness too.

Makes me know that, kinda like the chorus,

the happy’s going to come around again.

Right now I’m listening to that song

that my daddy and mom love called “September”

by Earth, Wind & Fire.

There’s this part where the singer keeps asking

Do you remember?

I don’t know why but every time he sings it,

I want to yell Yes!

I want to say I do.

Darry Dancing

The way Darry dances, it’s like

all the beats ever made

were only made to get his body

to twist and pop and turn and dip

and slide and jerk and spin

around them.

It’s like the beats bow down

when they see him coming

cuz even with the new dances,

he sees somebody doing it one time

and already he’s doing it better.

When we ask him how he got so good,

he says It’s just in my body. I just love it.

When you love a thing,

you gotta love it with everything you got,

my dad always says.

The Trail

The woods aren’t really woods, it’s just a park

with trails and trees and rabbits skittering

away from you.

Me, Daniel, Ollie and Darry meet there after school

because just before lunch,

Darry passed a note to me that I passed to Daniel

that Daniel passed to Ollie

that said

I need the trail.

I need the trail means I need my boys, means something is happening,

means come be around me.

Darry has the loudest laugh but mostly

he’s the quietest of all of us. And now he

needs us.

I know what it is. To just need

to have your boys around you.

Cuz they’re your boys and something about them surrounding you

makes you know everything’s going to be okay.

So after school the four of us walk and walk that trail, our backpacks bouncing,

our hoodies on under our coats because it’s too cold now

to tie them around our waists.

When we get to the place where so much sun

is coming in through the trees

it looks like a scene in a movie, Darry stops walking,

says So guess what.

My mom and dad are separating. They told us last night.

Darry’s sister is in high school. He has a brother

who’s already in college.

So in a way, he’s like an only child.

My dad’s gonna mostly stay in the city since

that’s where he works, Darry says.

The way his voice chokes around, you know he wants