I am the chain between yesterday and tomorrow.
The center, the filling between the endless ends.
When the before is no more,
when the after is yet to come.
The past will eventually disintegrate,
and the nebulous future is merely a hazy window.
But what about me?
I myself am always here.
I myself am the eternal *now.

There he is.
God, he looks like a dork.
Not *my dork, no.
Far from it, actually.
He’s just a dork
who just so happens
to dribble my heart around
in his rough, warm hands
without even realizing it.

There he is.
Oh, ****. He’s smiling my way.
Wait, wait, no.
His eyes so brown,
so ******* brown,
aren’t on me.
I turn around.

There she is.
She’s waving him over.
Oh.
Her.
She’s nice.
They’d make a cute couple,
now that I think about it.
The thought makes my stomach flip
like some sort of surprised pancake.

It hurts.
But after the first hundred times,
you get used to disappointment.
You accept it like a champ,
accepting the fact
that he’s someone else’s dork.

I like that thing you do with your tongue.
What do you call it?
Speaking?
Yeah, I dig it.

I reach out, begging,
waiting as I hold my breath,
hoping for the waves to return,
to stretch out,
to splash against my sand-coated feet.
Staring out at the ocean,
I wish.
I dream.
I pray.
But somewhere in my mind,
I have long since given up.
Call it selfishness,
call it greed.
Never will the ocean touch my flesh,
but I still crave to hold the salty water
up to my dry, cracked lips,
embracing its sting,
crying out for the sweetness
you and I long lost.