Maybe it was something in those days spent around screaming kids and messy art projects.

Wearing camp counselor shirts with swimsuits under.
Paint covering our arms and legs and grass burns from soccer games.
The kids we loved who would run up and hug us and the kids who we would yell at for our three months together.
I always had my favorites- Sophie who would draw me picture and my least favorites like Adian who undid my bikini top more times then I could count.

The kids aren't what made that summer unforgettable.
It was the people whose names i will never forget.
To some just coworkers but to me the best people I will ever know.

To the rest of the world the chum bucket was a gross basement of a house rented out to frat boys but to us it was our summer home.
It smelled of freedom and the moon shined in perfectly from a crack in the window.
The freedom of freshly 17
The freedom the city gave to us

The scar i have on my leg from the time we hopped a fence at three am to go swimming and the cops came.
The thousand miles we added to a car when we drove six hours to new york for three day and to the beach one friday.
From the night all of us crashed at a friend’s apartment floor fighting for blankets and warmth.
Falling asleep on the bus to work from lack of sleep from nights before.

The chum bucket saw more than fun that summer.
It saw heartbreak and tears from a text from my ex at three am when he Realized he didn’t care anymore.
The chum bucket also gave me the strength to ignore the next text from him.
It was home to tears and laugher and cheap corner store food.

We spent hundreds on food in those months from fancy restaurants to fast food stops.
Burger joints to food trucks
We visited every museum laughing and pushing each other along.
Trying to have a little more fun.
The beating of my heart when he took my hand and lead me around like it was nothing to show me my favorite piece of art.
That was the summer I won't forget

The chum bucket was my home that summer.
From nights I don't remember to night I'll never forget.
The chum bucket could've have been anything because the reason these memories were made were the people who were there for me at my highest and my lowest.
The people who made this the best summer of my life.