Close your eyes. You think of your childhood, the memories. You hear a song on the radio and are brought back to those hot summer nights, fireflies flashing. You reach to catch one, gone.

Before your mom had cancer, before everything was real. Before anything mattered. The grass under your feet, wilted by the sun. The squeaky blades rubbing your toes, embracing them.

Your nana calls you inside. You refuse, the night is too nice. The sun is setting, chalk monsters wrapping between the sidewalk cracks with shadows in their teeth, trying to steal your youth, your innocence.

Your backyard was full of life, frogs in the pond, the willow tree you would sit on and dangle your legs from. There were flowers across the pond, distant worlds away. Afraid to venture into the unknown field of lilacs. Afraid the purple men would carry you away forever.

You and your mother and nana sit on your deck, sipping lemonade and staring into the forest of trees that is your backyard. Fireflies migrated to the top of trees, crickets chirping away into a seemingly endless conversation. The sky is dark purple, the stars are beginning to appear. It’s time to rest. To sleep.

You wake up, ten years older. Your legs a foot longer than yesterday. You step outside, the yellowing grass is dying off in patches. The chalk buckets are stashed away in the attic. Your nana is dead, her kisses are just a memory, her ancient footsteps a whisper in the hallway of your house.

The pond has dried up, the frog that lived there is gone, moved on to better things. The willow tree where you would be the captain of the world has broken off and is rotting on the side of the pond. The lilacs are gone. There’s no lemonade or chairs on the deck. The wood has faded. The forest is thinned out, the trees are lifting their rooted legs and are walking away.

The chalk monsters that had faded so long ago; the monsters who tried to take your youth and innocence have succeeded.