This Is Less To Say You Never Know What You Got Till It’s Gone, And More To Say It Is All Going To Be Gone One Day, And It Is Probably Getting Gone Faster Than You Know Or Would Care To Know, And I’m Not Saying To Look Around Or You Might Miss It, But I Am Saying I, For The Most Part, Did Miss It, And Remembering Is Harder Than It Sometimes Seems

When I was more of a kid than I am now
There was a summer where I was at the beach once a week
And this was the summer where
Taco Bell introduced the two dollar meal deals
(That now cost three dollars or more in most places,
Yes I noticed)
So basically how it would go was this
On Saturdays
Dad would get up early and go to the local coffee shop
To write articles about
Talking to students about God and
Vice versa
And when our family’s ends would get
Close enough to meeting
He’d come home and wake my brothers and I up
And we wouldn’t even shower before
Throwing on swim trunks and
Taking the six and a half minute trip
From our front door to the waves
Christian radio the whole way there
Leaking out open windows
And we would beat the shit out of each other in the water
Laughing until everything was sore and bruised and lovely
And we would pull our aching, sand covered bodies back to the van
And drive just three minutes out of our way to
Get two dollar taco bell meals
In a time where fast food was more than a privilege
But a full on merciful gift
And I would eat my beefy five layer with the warmth of
One of those barely there sunburns covering my shoulders and cheeks
Never considering how lucky I was or where I was or anything like that at all.

And now
I have not been to a beach
Much less The Beach
In almost two years
And I see my dad every few months if I’m lucky
And he doesn’t write so much anymore
And there are no local coffee shops
And there are no Taco Bells near campus
And even if there were the meal would end up costing like, five dollars or something stupid
And both of my brothers head west while I head east
And we are all a bit too aching to wrestle now

Stuff disappears without anyone saying abracadabra these days
These days, there is no trick
Just something that was there
And then isn’t
Without any explanation
Or warning
Or showmanship at all

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Timmy Sutton is a senior at Georgetown University studying Government and English. He is always thinking about poetry and theatre and movies and how Taco Bell got rid of the $2 Meal Deals. Home is a constant negotiation, but he knows he dearly loves his parents and two brothers in Mokena, IL, desperately misses Corpus Christi, TX, and is so thankful for his friends here at Georgetown.