KINGMAN GIRLS (BTP prompt)

This week's prompt over at  Big Tent Poetry was a "Wordle".  I only used a few words from it, but those few had me remembering a wonderful time of life...my teenage years with my best friend.

In a blue Chevy Malibu
hand-me-down car,
along a cracked blacktop
roller-coaster ride,
two girls race towards womanhood,
wild and fast.
Through the dry desert valley,
covered in sand and baby oil,
soaked in the smell of steaming wet dog
rising from the black backseat.

Tethered together
since first day, second grade,
and bonded tightly by
countless sleepovers
and Saturday double-features.
They compare sunburns
while laughing over how drunk they
got last week from screw top wine,
and the day they (not so bravely)
pierced each other's ears.

Stoked on caffeine, sun,
and Jolly Ranchers,
they rush back to stifling houses.
Their only future
a long cold shower before
the date tonight
with those rough-edged boys
they're crazy for,
and the pointless classes
of next semester.

Any other future
is in a smoky distance,
far removed from this perfect,
blistering, summer day.
A day of piss-warm lake water,
flirting with Bullhead boys,
and the dry, hot wind streaming
through the windows.
On every dip, they bottom out,
on every hill they fly…

This is dedicated to my dearest lifelong friend,  Cathy.  Childhood would have been empty without her.