seaweeds

Please.

Don't ask me what it feels like.

Tethered to the shore of a picturesque beach.

You know I'm always looking over the horizon.

Where the sun sets and where the tide goes.

I hear the women behind me laughing.

I want the tide to stop. I know it never leaves for long.

Always engulfing, seasoning me just up to my neck.

Why can't the tide go higher?

To stop their laughing.

The sun. The heat it spits.

I want to chase it.

To see where it goes just over there.

Why does it always go that way?

I dig my hands into the sand clutching a soda can.

It is my only companion.

As the mermaids ride their unicorns on the horizon.

Galloping to cities and worlds far beyond this beach.

I see their shoes wash ashore everyday.

Do they not need them where they're going?

On a new morn the women return discussing each other's husbands whom they met here.

Hickory smoked sausages make themselves apparent. When the husbands return and the conversation shifts.

An airplane in the sky spells "I love you Brenda."

The laughter grows louder. Strumming my ribcage like blinds in a dusty house.

And the tides they batter and season me for consumption.

So don't ask me how it feels when you really want to know how it seems.

Please.