The water is always calmest at night, sometime around one or two on the Carolina coast. It’s right around the time the moon has grown tired of pulling the earth towards it; when its hands are shaking from holding in something so big, when the water takes a little bit longer each time to kiss the shore. I’ve learned to love how the water looks at night, it seems more selfless to me than it does during the day when the sunshine reflects the peaks and breaks of each wave, when the water is clear and you can see into every part of it. It’s different at night, it becomes a blackened mirror reflecting only the images of those awake long enough to see it, and it’s much more humble- to show off other people.

I think the thing is we inspire danger
Within one another
We’ve realized the falsity of fear
And found instead it was always a choice
And now we’ve chosen to forgo it
To embrace danger as easily
As we embrace one another
This is a beautiful thing to find in another person
So that when the skies fall
And the armies invade our city
When the streets run so rampant with violence
That the government outlaws touching
We won’t be afraid to stand in the streets
To hold each other in chaos
To kiss each other where we need it.

Find me a place where heartache ends
And when you find it, mark it with an “X”
But instead of burring gold there
Bury you’re betrayal, bury it deep
In a wooden box with a padlock
So that even over the years
When the salty air and crashing waves
Erode that sandy grave
And that pain surfaces again
I’ll have had enough time
To wash in the tide
The smell of you from my clothes
To baptize myself in the sea
From your sinful touches
To let the waves beat down
On my ears so loud
They’ll forget how your name sounds
When that wooden box floats
Back to me on the opposite side of the shore
Then I’ll know when it’s safe to come back to that place
And I’ll brush off the “X” you put there
Because that’s where the heartache ends.

You look your best mid-swig
The way your neck bends
And water or beer or sweet tea
Flows down your throat
And I know your thirsts are quenched-
When you look surprised your eyes
Open real wide and your eye brows
Tip-toe to barely kiss the bottom of your hair line-
Unless you're wearing a hat
That you like best backwards
And these are the little things that I hope only I notice
So that if you were ever to go missing only I-
Could describe you accurately
I'll describe all of these little things
To the lead detective
And I'd tell him about
How the bridge of your nose crinkles
When you **** in your cheeks
And blow out air.

I’m the luckier of the two of us
I get to see you
In a way you could never see yourself
The better way to look at you
A way that’s not in a reflection
Or in a photograph
In a way that allows me to see how your eyes light up
When you talk about your passions
How your smile crinkles more to the left
When your eyes are closed
How every part of you glows when you feel love
And believe me I crave every part of that glow-
Especially your eyes, the kind you could get lost in
And I guess I did
And since I am the luckier of us two
I promise to always look closely
And to always tell you intimately
Of all the things about you, you aren’t lucky enough to see.

I wish to be my mother
But I am proud to be her daughter
To be a person
Who has had the privilege
Of hearing her heart beat
From both the out and inside.

Walk with me
From the sun into the ocean
From the water into the sand
Let’s make our steps as powerful as lightening
And just as bright and when our toes
Touch the shore
Let’s make glass
A purer and more beautiful element
And when the trash collectors pick up
Our footprints and throw them hastily
Into bags
Even the way we shatter will be beautiful
We’ll be glass in a world of plastic.