standing in front of the pacific
sea salt hair, frothy finger scooping
water back into the sea
gulls hungry desperate endangered
if not for stranger's crisps
clawed baby *****
pincers at the ready
crushed by babies human
shell fractured by skin
hands held together by other hands
threaded together like a lifeline
families laugh, dolphin-like chortles
over nothing
at all
and sons and daughters
forgo their differences, chuck them
into waves with grey shore rocks, protect
their towels and castles and bodies
with sand moats, a starfish
plunked dead center
far away from home
iridescent sea shells collected
as jewels, worn around pretty
bruised necks of housewives
content in their one-day
ocean excursion turned revolution
solitude as i watch
and sit and think and think and
feel and watch some more
eyes like those saccharine
candy floss treats, cloying to
tongues and fingertips, alone
in another universe i am
with a family
tossing our children into ocean waves
dunking ourselves into the deep
collecting glinting shells for
our jewelry, breaking them
as they are shoved into plastic bags
but today
in this universe
i am the crab
crushed by skin
and flesh
and bone
a soulless thing
careful to observe, cautious, fleeting
miniscule
to be fed upon, ******
dry by trauma,
licked off the fingers of
would-have-been acquaintances
a carcass of longing
for moremoremore

yet never quite certain
how to crawl towards it
lest i be
stomped upon
again

so i sit on the beach
inhale saltwater and laughter and affection
through my skin
and make friends with sea creatures
as lonely as i am
as insignificant
as me