It was a humid, heavy August in New Jersey, the beach an hour away but I could still hear it. The mosquitos bounced against my back-porch door, the only light, their blood, guiding their way in the middle of the night. My manicured childhood home felt suspended in the thick air. In my stoned haze I watched them, the gentle air conditioning coming through the vents. No one was home, a certain stillness permeating, a kind of quiet that only occurs during the dog days of summer. I stood naked in my adolescence and crept down the soft carpeted stairs into the kitchen. The tiled floors against my feet and the cool marble of the island against my stomach. I ran my hands through the fruit bowl, the seasonal abundance obvious. I picked up a tie-dye yellow mango, impeccably ripe. I could peel the soft skin with my bare hands, the juice running down my face onto my chest. It was the closest I have ever been to the universe.