sunspots on your shoulders.
i can smell the ocean from my front porch, miles away. this is unusual, even for this beach town. i haven't seen another person all day.
nightfall. i hop on the bike and conquer tall bridges and busy bar avenues. back to the street where i used to live. back to the beach approach where my once best friend fought god.
i lock my bike to the sign pole and stash my things in a hollowed out palm log. the ritual seems second nature. the ocean is magnificent tonight, but it's been far too long. the waves are bitter, and the riptide threatens to carry me north, miles past the breaking point.
i know how to fight the tide. i grew up with the sand caked behind my ears.
timing is everything when you're trying to catch the waves. use only your body. float in the roar and the silence of the tubes. tumble through south beach strip hues of turquoise and magenta. fight the board shorts-wearing, trident-wielding gods of the sea. almost taste the sea salt on her skin.
***
tonight i laid on the mesh of some wealthy person's catamaran. those washed out electronic lullabies bled and diluted, from my headphones into the sound of the waves. the moon was full, but hid behind clouds shaped like islands, archipelagos dimming the moonlight like lampshades. tonight, it felt like the liquid center of summer.
tomorrow i'll wake up in the wet sunlight, in a daydream of the way i can feel your stomach muscles clench when you're getting off. in delirium of that soft fuzz on your thighs. then, once the sunshowers wash the haze away, i'll wipe away your half-asleep smile. i'll water my garden and soak up the last remains of your eyeshadow stories. blot out our bedroom dances and red wine rants. chop down the sunflowers, devour the seeds. pull them up by the roots and feel them tear screaming out of the ground. it sounds too much like your voice, bouncing down chocolate ice cream hallways. i'll destroy all evidence that the sound was ever here. that you ever left me good mornings on post it notes. that you ever believed i was capable of more than being the monster under your bed. that you ever knew how love weaves and binds and changes at the molecular level, like you read in the books in old bindings written by maniacs and crimes of passion.
tomorrow i'll learn to forget.
nightfall. i hop on the bike and conquer tall bridges and busy bar avenues. back to the street where i used to live. back to the beach approach where my once best friend fought god.
i lock my bike to the sign pole and stash my things in a hollowed out palm log. the ritual seems second nature. the ocean is magnificent tonight, but it's been far too long. the waves are bitter, and the riptide threatens to carry me north, miles past the breaking point.
i know how to fight the tide. i grew up with the sand caked behind my ears.
timing is everything when you're trying to catch the waves. use only your body. float in the roar and the silence of the tubes. tumble through south beach strip hues of turquoise and magenta. fight the board shorts-wearing, trident-wielding gods of the sea. almost taste the sea salt on her skin.
***
tonight i laid on the mesh of some wealthy person's catamaran. those washed out electronic lullabies bled and diluted, from my headphones into the sound of the waves. the moon was full, but hid behind clouds shaped like islands, archipelagos dimming the moonlight like lampshades. tonight, it felt like the liquid center of summer.
tomorrow i'll wake up in the wet sunlight, in a daydream of the way i can feel your stomach muscles clench when you're getting off. in delirium of that soft fuzz on your thighs. then, once the sunshowers wash the haze away, i'll wipe away your half-asleep smile. i'll water my garden and soak up the last remains of your eyeshadow stories. blot out our bedroom dances and red wine rants. chop down the sunflowers, devour the seeds. pull them up by the roots and feel them tear screaming out of the ground. it sounds too much like your voice, bouncing down chocolate ice cream hallways. i'll destroy all evidence that the sound was ever here. that you ever left me good mornings on post it notes. that you ever believed i was capable of more than being the monster under your bed. that you ever knew how love weaves and binds and changes at the molecular level, like you read in the books in old bindings written by maniacs and crimes of passion.
tomorrow i'll learn to forget.