Every now and then, I hand over the reigns of my blog to someone else to see what wisdom they might have for you, and give a little platform to someone else. Today, those reigns go over to Liz Riggs, a beautiful writer, wise beyond her years.

sometimes when it is humid out—Tennessee sticky wet taffy and hot blankets—and i’m running past someone’s lawn, damp land just mowed, allergies floating up through the thick air you can practically grab them in your hand, sometimes i feel 15 again, soccer ball at my feet, adolescent heart pumping in my chest, running endless circles and wind sprints for the love it all, for my truest love.

i can taste the teenage salt on my lips and remember the heartache of being young, young, young.

and how odd it is to become an adult. trying to stop it with all your might, with all the collective brittle aging bones in your twenty thirty something body when did they start to ache?

but we fall in love and start to pick up tiny scars and little bags of hurt and love and fear and memories and who said they’d always be there?

we drink and drink and drink some more, maybe we can swallow down our age and plaster our youth to these crumbling bathroom walls in the bars our parents never dreamt we’d drink in.

can we stay up all night? drink in the crystal ether of the moon maybe–
dance over moving lights
what time is it?
what time is it?

if i don’t buy dress pants.
those slimy slacks people pretend to prefer
if if if
i can still fit into those jeans from 23, then i can have the blue moon bomb tequila drenched drudge we’d drink on Tuesdays at 4 in the afternoon to keep ourselves sane.

do you hear that?
the wailing sacred squeal of a child, no helmet no hands no fear, bursting through the treeline of gentrifying streets asking YOU, Ms. Adult, for a Cold Drink.

There’s so much sugar, how about a banana?
But boy, boy, I would eat all the popsicles in the world every day for all the days forever and tomorrow and yesterday today.

We get married—and we even want to!—and friends have babies and others can’t and they want and they want and they hope for new life and the HOLY SHIT responsibility of parenting.

and we cry at the changing tides of friendship and Friday nights and oh, no, baby, will we be boring?
Are we boring?

The humid air the scent of grass and I am 17.
and cross eye confused and bold with effusion and wondering what matters most.

and this is so complicated really only chris carrabba gets it so we must learn to play guitar.

we don’t play much anymore, but look at them on our walls that we own—pull one down! you can use it to take you ANYWHERE.
faster than the fresh cut grass to 2003 with 3 chords or 2009 with those first songs we wrote.

I know everyone grows old but why does it feel like baby it’s only us and we keep swimming and swimming and EW the water’s too cold and we’re getting nowhere, but we can’t stop.

can we?

Follow Liz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/riggser