thingie I just wrote
The blood is dripping from my fingertips and forming smooth little circles of wet, dark sand at my feet. Tears are falling, too, but they dangle and wiggle at my chin and don’t splash into the sand.
I sink to my knees in the damp sand just as a wave washes up. The rest of the waves have been hitting ten feet away from me, but this one comes to meet me. It washes the tears from my cheeks and leaves its own salt, washes away my blood-puddles, and washes the sand from under my knees and my toes so I get that feeling that I love where you sink and slip by a couple of inches with each wave.
The blood pouring from my fingertips washes into little curls and swirls of red in the water. My hair flies all around me and gets tangled in itself.
I feel dead.
As the wave pulls back, I fall forward. Sand scrapes elbows and saltwater stings. I examine my fingers. Now devoid of dried blood, each wound is a clean, round sore. No jagged edges, no embedded grit.
I can’t help wishing on some level that the wounds were jagged and rough and ugly. That they would leave horrible scars. That in five years people would walk by me on the street and shake their heads sadly.
I pull myself back to my knees, purposely scraping my fingertips along the wet sand. Tears splash from my cheeks onto my hands held in front of me, stinging wounds in wrinkled fingers.
I bow my head forward. Wet, tangled masses of hair fall in my eyes. I close my eyes, making sure to remember how ugly my hair is. I bury my hands in wet sand, wiggling fingers to embed grains of sand in clean wounds.
I feel dead.
I sink to my knees in the damp sand just as a wave washes up. The rest of the waves have been hitting ten feet away from me, but this one comes to meet me. It washes the tears from my cheeks and leaves its own salt, washes away my blood-puddles, and washes the sand from under my knees and my toes so I get that feeling that I love where you sink and slip by a couple of inches with each wave.
The blood pouring from my fingertips washes into little curls and swirls of red in the water. My hair flies all around me and gets tangled in itself.
I feel dead.
As the wave pulls back, I fall forward. Sand scrapes elbows and saltwater stings. I examine my fingers. Now devoid of dried blood, each wound is a clean, round sore. No jagged edges, no embedded grit.
I can’t help wishing on some level that the wounds were jagged and rough and ugly. That they would leave horrible scars. That in five years people would walk by me on the street and shake their heads sadly.
I pull myself back to my knees, purposely scraping my fingertips along the wet sand. Tears splash from my cheeks onto my hands held in front of me, stinging wounds in wrinkled fingers.
I bow my head forward. Wet, tangled masses of hair fall in my eyes. I close my eyes, making sure to remember how ugly my hair is. I bury my hands in wet sand, wiggling fingers to embed grains of sand in clean wounds.
I feel dead.