From my front porch step I watch the fireflies alight upon shoots of grass in the dried-up creek beds on a warm summer night, flashing like bulbs from a thousand tiny cameras beneath a canvas of cottonwoods, all swaying to the symphony of blinking lights
like the way your dress used to flow in a soft prairie breeze, taking each strand of golden hair and letting it brush across your freckled face, scrunched up in a smile while we chased fireflies like children, grasping playfully and coming up with only palmfuls of air and your hand clasped tightly in mine.
I sit here now in shimmering silence and let the incandescent lights illuminate my thoughts, tracing back to when we so blissfully and blindly sought what only flickered and faded before our eyes, and I can't help but wish you were here with me tonight to take my hand like you once did
and run with me, chasing those fireflies, only this time hanging on to what was there all along.
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The Editor-in-Chief for Touchstone 2011 is Lindsey Givens. She is a second year master's student in children's literature and she received her bachelor's in creative writing from the University of Arkansas in 2009.