Smack
SMACK
Here by the sea and sand I curl against the rocks. Waves lap in and out. I am lost in a blanket of fog. The distant call of the bellboy reigns down with a hazy mirage of self. I don’t see you. Maybe you’re looking after the pigs. Somewhere in the hills cigarettes smolder in ashtrays. Cans of beer are crushed in bare hands. Belts and rage wait. I listen to you nearly every night. You race inside my heart so fast I could explode while lying still. Your drumming pumps through my body and keeps it alive even when all motion is gone. Even when I am nothing but mist. Internal organs carved into the grooves of vinyl. Do you know you beat in my heart as I lie on the shore of death? Your arms raised, insisting on being heard. Each time your drumsticks smack the surface, it’s a demand to feel, to see. Feel this. See this. Feel me. See me. The real me. Even as I curl in a ball and vanish in the sea and sand. A ghost. Just like you.