The Goddamn Beach
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Literature Text
On the beach, a thick mist sits on everything,
a vagueness like memory,
and I try to look through it,
to the sea.
Nostalgia’s a handy crutch,
and I hobble into the fog to where
I played capture the flag
and running bases, and
drank piss-warm vodka under the lifeguard chair
where I took off all my clothes
and kissed summer on the mouth,
everything but sober.
I felt so sure of something then,
when morning was a hammock made of golden feathers,
and I was arced in it,
sweaty, contributing to the humidity,
simply forgetting time.
Now mornings are a generic glare through the window and 3 iPhone alarms,
and now that Time is sprawled out in front of me like a leathered, middle-aged lady,
slathered in tanning oil,
her legs as amorphous and vast as
the waveless ocean behind the fog,
instead of getting answers,
I feel like Time snuck contacts into my eyes,
because everything’s blurry
and I don’t know where to go,
or how to kiss.