August Seventeenth

Durags hung on the wall like Do Not Steal cashier signs 

it reeked of bubble gum vapes and discarded blunts 

fumes from the fill with diesel pump. 

We were both sweaty, tightly clothed in athleisure 

running after school beside sidewalks and avoiding cars. 

It was our months of firsts: cross country meets and her saying, “Let's go

this way instead, I'll take you to the gas station near my house.” There,

we seemed alone in the blinking fluorescent lights 

where bonnets were seated next to Tic-Tacs, 

hair picks next to bubble gum, her next to me. 

We ran through neighborhoods and over a bridge 

where a little white bird was about to take flight. 

I sat on her couch, and her blind dog couldn't stop staring, seeing sweat

building on my forehead, sticking my shirt to my chest, my palms rubbing

together. Her room was brightly colored. Her house small with a cage for her

pet bunny rabbits and her second dead hamster. She bought me a packet of

gum and in the sun, 

my brown eyes reflected in hers.

Kiitan Adedeji served as the inaugural 2023 Lexington Youth Poet Laureate. She was also a 2025 Young Arts winner with distinction for Poetry. Kiitan attends Lafayette High School as a SCAPA Literary Arts Major and in the Pre-Engineering Program. You can often find Kiitan staring at the fish in her aquarium, raving about matcha tea, and thinking about something new to write.