My community is like a day at the beach.
The warm water melts away the ****** seagull calls
As we build sandcastles large enough for the biggest
And most ridiculously hard to say umbrella that we can
Manage to stitch together from our broken homes.

We play volleyball with our hope
The biggest beach ball we can muster
Our net constructed of ally weave
And it’s got flames and it’s super bad-*** and ****
But nets are only nets
And nets can only do so much
You can’t play games without
The people.

We ride jet skis away from sharks
Sharing the strong towers
Of our middle fingers
Because **** sharks
I know only some of them are dangerous
But after you see a body floating in the water
Like a buoyed tomb
It’s hard to forget the biting.

The net asked us once
Why we never have a funeral
I guessed that it didn’t realize that
We don’t have the time
To bury all the bodies
That’s like
Asking us to count the sand
Like telling us to collect the waves
Like begging us to dry an ocean of tears

But
These aren’t tears
They are a body count
These aren’t sickles of sand
They are our ancestors’ ashes
These aren’t warm waves
but walls of black blood
And it’s here
Amongst the ashes
And blood
That we build our sandcastles

I look around in mine
It is insulated in white
The black blood
Only begins to broach
The moat outside
If I never bothered
To look
I might never see it

How much time
Must we spend in
Our sandcastles
Before we can
Smell the blood
Outside

How deep do we
Have to dig our holes
Before we silence the screams
Outside

Why are we just
Looking at the walls
Why aren’t we looking
Outside

We are not royalty
We are not arbiters of
Ash and blood
This is NOT a
Game

Net’s don’t matter when
All the players are dying.

How many sandcastles
Do we have to build
Before we remember
The stone riots that
Built them

Be spiked heel shoes
Be rock and brick
Be broken windows
Be shattered bone

Raise your fist against
The biting tide
Swim against the sharks
Until you bleed enough
To drown
Them

Be blood
Be ash
Be broken homes
Be ****** murals
In the street
Be white sandcastles
Then tear yourself down
Until you get back to the
Stone Walls of your foundation

You know what, ever mind
**** sandcastles
They seem too much like sharks
anyway

sometimes my anxieties are like intricately built sandcastles. i have been known to worry and fret over these sandcastles for hours, even days, at a time. i will collect millions of grains of sand and sloppily sculpt them. they are not usually beautiful or special or anything worth my time at all, but i continue build these castles. it’s like i have to. if i stop, what else is there anymore? what do i do? there is a sandcastle for all of my worries, all of the things that shiver beneath my chest for too long, anything that leaves my bones aching after all of the clocks plead midnight.

a year ago i was sitting on a sun-painted beach surrounded by two thousand sandcastles. the wind was beating the breath out of my lungs. the ocean was far off, so far i could hardly even see the dancing silver waters. i kept building them. i was tired and i was crying and building these hideous sandcastles of anxiety with my bare hands. people would pass me by, briefly, shaking their heads like i was something broken. i was miserable. i was always alone and i did nothing but build sandcastles. a year ago i was sad but no one knew why. a year ago i was sad but i didn’t know why.

but now i know you and the ocean is much closer, i can see it pushing back and forth all hours of the day and feel its song, because you are the ever-present waters that collapse my anxieties. i still build them often, but you continually take them away from me and they are forgotten. i do not know where you put them. i just know that every time i speak to you, you extend your long arms around them and they crumble. most of the time now it’s just me sitting on wet sand as the white-wash curves of your waves swallow every one up. i make you laugh and my anxieties sink. every new worry i have, your edges swim to the shore and carry it off. no matter how quick i try to build them, every time i blink they will be gone. i don’t know how you do it.

sometimes i think about joining you in the sea, but i’m scared. i don’t want to lose that part of myself. i’m afraid of what i won’t have anymore if i leave this fragile collection of crumbled sandcastles behind. i’ve fallen in love with the call of the sea and the storms that it brews, but i can’t abandon land just yet. your waves silently ask me all of the time but i can’t let go of this just yet.

i hope one day, when i’m ready, the ocean will gently carry me away, too.

I am tired of building sandcastles; pouring heart and soul into time spent together with the enthusiasm that comes with newfound infatuation. Building relationships like sandcastles, artfully crafted with a mixture of chemistry and compassion to form beautiful and wondrous things alive with imagination with the hope that one day the proper name for it will be that elusive and all-inclusive word "love." I spend that time in a strange mixture of hard work and yet effortless way things fall together, and each castle is as different, unique, and beautiful in its own right as the next. But time spent as Queen with my King companion is shortlived. The tide sweeps in and away, and the castle crumbles and in time there is not a trace of the hallowed halls that once were the home to invested emotion. Sometimes I am left with the nagging doubt whether the castle was ever even there. Sure i remember my hands in the sand, my hand in his hand, the towers in the sky, the look in his eye. But with no evidence, no trace I begin to think it may all have been a lovely and then depressing dream. The sand lays at rest for a time but then it begins again, because I have love to give and love to share and I see the potential in the next prince to build a castle greater than the last, forgetting all about the ruins that have been swept away by that sea. No I'm tired of these sandcastles, as exhilarating and breathtaking as the adventure into architecture is... I think I'm ready for a house made of stone, I want to build a place love can find a solid home.

Let the sea take over the day my sandcastles failed,
Awestruck, glanced over the epitome of waves.
Faulty walls glued by moistened soil
Taken back despite my daytime toil.

Why have we gotten this far sooner?
This eventual scene hastened the need fuller.
Where have we been thus far back?
From the breeze, the promise and the distinctive tact.

Scoop of sand formed to bridges and brigs,
Mold of trail held strung by twigs.
Had I known the way the sandcastle to stand;
I may not have clung on a foundation unstiff as land.

But the dusk shows promise and fulfills a new day soon
Despite seeing the tide rush in my feet, it’s through.
I look on, breathe a sigh, moved on, carried my pail;
Let the sea take over the day my sandcastles failed.

Looking at my album,
Of a picture taken,
Long ago built,
Sandcastles,
Made from child dreams,
Of sand and water,
On a shore play day,
Using hand shovel and bucket,
Scooping sand,
Mixing with water,
Hands molding,
A child’s fort takes place,
With dreams of fierce battles,
Slowly afternoon tide comes in,
Washing against castle walls,
Reclaiming its precious sand,
Waves invade,
Hand prints disappear,
Molded mounds fall,
Those castle forms disappear,
Soon they become just a memory,
Forever caught,
In a Kodak moment,
Have you ever made a sandcastle?

During youth I was quite the collector
of ocean ******'s annealed sandcastles
Though the hosts inside could not be cheaper,
their fleshy coats were worth all the hassles

Content I was amassing worn seashells;
monthly did this fine collection accrue
Though furnished, barren felt those wooden shelves,
as even pearls are lesser than a jewel

Still, the sand was warm; the waves were soothful
and regardless of what hollowness struck,
the beach granted a chance to feel fruitful
so long as one had either skill or luck

Alone was I, but daresay not lonely,
but I was not merry until married.

i’m sorry your love does not fit into my junk mail
and that i will not become a hoarder for you
you say you’re disgusting
but i think you’ve rubbed yourself raw against my skin
until your bones have become protruding branches from your body
the blood that used to circulate through me
has now turned into sand
you punctured my lungs and i started leaking beaches
there are no sandcastles, just chunks of broken seaglass
just pebbles and bugs and dirt
you can’t shield me from the sun, i’ve already been burnt
so now when people step on me
i burn back

*(a.m.c.)

I paint a picture non obscure, antique
A snapshot heart sees
Both love and clay
Up there’s a castle
And maiden fair
Who plays about a sandbox
And gold streaming through the air
Hearts hug
And hands care
Soft voice as light
Caresses within the obscure
Of darkness and pain
Destroying all but which is love pure
Laid upon my feet is too once clay and...
Waves are crashing
Upon the infinite sandcastles
By the little sea
And fair maiden
Who lets it be

sandcastles haunted
by the ghosts of ancient *****—
moon-pulled tides whisper