in summer everytime I left my ex girlfriend’s house there’d be a toad on the driveway under the floodlight looking for late night eats. she’d pick the toad up—we deemed it was a boy, with no proof, we weren’t toad experts, and we named him Javier, pronounced like Xavier but with a hard J, JAVE-yer, [dʒeɪvɪəɹ]—she’d move Javier out of harm’s way so that I could back up my mom’s minivan down her driveway without running him over. yeah he was a toad—not a frog—and yeah he was on the driveway—not the floor—but Javier brought us so much joy that long summer. then one day Javier was gone, we’d finished kissing while watching Hannibal and Javier was not there, not under the floodlight, not on the driveway, not in the path of my mom’s minivan, and we wondered if he’d died or if we just couldn’t find him but we never saw him again. as I listen to this song I dwell on Javier and summer nights and my mom’s minivan and floodlights and giving toads space to let them do their thing and kissing during shows and there’s a frog on the floor and I’m on the floor and I’m crying
Erica Leslie Weidner is based, in New Jersey, and based in New Jersey. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of underscore_magazine. When she’s not crying about frogs, she’s at her day job doing badass librarian stuff.