Sarah and the Sea

There's something sort of inconspicuously romantic, you think, about mourning your various unrequited loves on the beach. Ironic maybe, on a Sunday afternoon, considering all the children and laughter and couples. But you're not wrong. You're beginning to think that maybe the ocean is the only thing on this planet that won't break your heart and if you had a tent, you'd pitch it on the sand and stay there until you had to go back to Calgary. Or until the police took you to jail. Whichever. It doesn't matter at this point because this whole situation is just getting completely ridiculous. So ridiculous that camping unlawfully on a sea shore to drown out the voices in your head actually seems like a feasible option. You think about all this while you smoke the last cigarette in the pack and bury the butt in the sand. Yes, you think, as the tide changes. This is an intimacy which requires no one. And maybe people would call that sinister. Maybe you'd agree. Maybe you'd agree because it is so tempting to wake up three hours before dawn and run into that tide fully clothed just to see how far you can swim before you get too tired to go back.

floating warm on the bottom
you heard your heart from the inside out
a slow throb against the rib-cage
surprised at drowning's tenderness
and persuasion like the huge hand
of a lover pressing you down
- CF