The sun gleamed off the ocean water, and with one sultry glare she turned the sands raspy texture to that of glossy plastic.
I planted my toes deep within the shore, trying to force myself beneath the earth.
The breeze wrapped around my shoulders, and I leaned my weight into it.
This place makes me think of everything all at once.
About broken childhood toys, my brother's coin collection, raccoons digging through our rubbish bins, my loose teeth. Time struggles to continue here, I think, just like when you're young and you try to run underwater.
It makes me, obligates me, to remember that first time she'd gotten sick. I'd held the loose frame of my mother in my arms, whispering frantically that'd she be okay, she'd be okay. My mother nodded weakly in agreeance but even then I could see the color leaving her blouse.
This beach, this goddamn beach. We'd spent so many summers vacationing her, and now it's a tomb. Bits of her teeth and her legs and her hair all mixed in with the sand, the dog piss, the beer bottles.
I'd had a mother. One that hugs you and smells like clean linens and makes the best scrambled eggs. Then I had a room in a hospital, and then a box, and then charcoal sand. And now I've got broken sea shells and this grey-scale green water and it isn't a fair trade at all.