I was playing with the wet sand
between my tan feet and pink toes,
feeling the breeze on my shoulder blades
counting how many waves passed in between thoughts of you
thoughts of what I'd come home to,
when someone's voice interrupted your memory.

I looked up to an automatic worried face,
pale white in the Caribbean sun
with scruffy chest hair and a stomach
but the brownest eyes I had ever seen
next to yours in a stunning comparison.


He asked me where I was from
and when the reflection of something American
rang in my voice as I told him my home state,
I saw a little relief in his stature, breathing with ease.
He told me about Boston.
How that's where he's from.
And I was speechless.

After an empty silence, he crossed his arms and sniffed
something staggered and unsure.
That's my kids over there, in the waves
he said quietly with a small gesture
towards two beauties crashing into the water's heaps
their mother close behind.
I smiled wide as he continued to say

They think they're going home tomorrow
but their not.
That place will never be the same.

I could hear my heart break in seven different ways.
They were merely 10.
His wife held her breath as they swam,
knowing the waves were like the world
ebbing and pulling at her creations
and there wasn't much she could do
but reel them in for as long as she could,
before they were cast out again.

He told me how scared he was,
how he feared the faces of humanity
that his kids would have to shield themselves from
if they were ever going to grow up in some security.
I hadn't much to respond with
other than that I was just as scared as he was
and that he was the strongest dad
that he could be for them.

At first I found it weird
that he would put such trust in the pouring of words
to a complete stranger,
but then I realized that maybe that's what he needed after all.
I was the first one he could recognize,
the only one here that would understand
about the crumpled newspapers in his room or the phone ringing off the hook,
the countless emails he'd been through, the muting of the tv
so the kids wouldn't hear too much news
and ruin their innocence to quickly
on a vacation they originally intended
to get away.
But it all came back to them,
harder than anyone would ever wish upon someone.

So I let him weave his worry into my soul,
let him talk me senseless about the coward he felt he was
beneath the good front he was putting on for his family.
I was that somebody he needed to relate.
And I made sure that when he thanked me kindly,
saluted me with a goodbye and a wave
that he knew I would pray for something other than you,
that he was bigger than me
and awfully brave, too.

Look, I know I don't owe you anything.
But without the casual back talk and the rebuttal of your face in the couch,
beer in the crook of your arm, and bare feet I'll ask you
why'd you sleep with her?
Why'd you do this to me?

I'll slap you so you get up,
lean over the shoulder I sit next to you
and pour your words on my lap as I pretend to sleep.
And as your unknown confession is listened,
between words you won't remember you said
I'll fall sentimental,
and start tucking your secrets with my hand on your head
behind your ears that are sliced with my whispers
that I'll love you even though you broke into me.
That I'll keep staying until I don't remember why I need to leave.

Then you'll roll over and the cut on your lip will awaken my senses,
rustle the belief
as I quietly ask you what happened.
You'll wipe the spit from your chin,
take a breath that smells like bad mornings,
and tell me it's nothing of my concern.
When I beg for the explanation,
put my thumb against the dried blood reminder
that no matter how solemn your soul
you'll never stop hurting me,
you'll turn away and tell me to go.
Tell me you never actually needed me to stay.

I'll stand up with a face painted fury,
and scream at the things I should have come to expect.
The same rage I slammed the door with when I entered,
now races in my heart as I try to lay it down
on the floor so you can see how badly you broke me
when I heard that there was another her.

"She was just a body,"
you'll start to stutter
"I was drunk and it didn't mean a thing."
But your dreary eyes and your half molded chest
waltzing over to me with a lust in your hands,
tell me that your words in the moment I capture you
mean nothing passed the second their said.

Look, I know I don't owe you anything.
But there's something in the way you look at me that begs the question
to be said under the weight of the consequence of never really being the same
I'll ask you
Why is this all the better we'll ever be?
Why'd you have to do this to me?

I believe in who you are.
I double back the circles on your skin from the scars.
I believe in who you are.

I render myself speechless
your face gets stuck in my jaw when I try to breathe
through all the things I'm scared to ask you,
but already know the answer to.
I've trusted the luck that brought me to you.
I've been wrong.
But your soft look is enough to make me think
I've never been more right before.

I smashed your honesty once.
I captured it between an endless night and a short coming morning,
let you have what I told you to take.
Gave up the strength I structured.
I broke open my mouth so the cacophony
of all the missing you I'd be doing,
all the loving I always had,
could be heard through your covered ears,
could be listened
by someone I always thought recognized me.

Then you ran,
and I was here waiting for you to come back.

But I can't ask you about that.
You're lips splice the seconds I have to interrupt
your pleading for my discontinued existence in your life.
You make me afraid to be somebody,
because I've become so passionate about losing you
that I'm scared to be who I am
without you being a part of it.

So I'll keep being that backboard,
keep ******* back my confessions.
and I'll always believe in who you are.
I double back the circles on your skin from the scars.
I believe in who you are.

I've been plagued by your excuses before.
I've been run through so many times,
with hands that don't like to hold much when they can.
I've been in this battle before,
bore the weapon and aimed my shot
and I never asked you for anything.
I have never
asked you to do anything for me.
So why should I be curved with disappointment
when my one request turns up empty?
I've been plagued by your excuses before.
There was no shock in the delivery.

I get to be disappointed,
but you don't get to feel sorry for me.

There's too much grace in the right to feel bad
in only ever hurting somebody,
and you don't even deserve that.

I've been plagued by your excuses before.
I never asked you for anything.
You've never been there, you never will be.
I get to be disappointed
but you don't get to feel sorry for me.

A man stopped me on the sand today.
Frenchman from Italy with hair like snow and orange skin
with freckles like a kaleidoscope on his body.
He was forty but found promise in the ripeness
of my eighteen year old body.
Asked me to take shots of *** with him later
once it got real dark out.
I just smiled and said alright,
nodded my head and kicked the sand up at my heels.
Most would have been so offended,
charged some order, called someone up.
I was just flattered.

I like to know I'm desired by somebody.
because you don't make me feel
hardly anything
anymore.
You just pick and pry at the parts you want of me
until I'm out of ways to put you back together
even if it's only partially
or for only a short time.

I like to know I'm wanted by somebody,
because sometimes I have to beg for you to look at me.
You just sit with a beer in your fist
staring at the walls for an answer you won't find
at the bottom of all the years you've drowned yourself in.

You didn't even notice I had left.
So even though I'll come home, sit safely in your arms
until the gleam wears off my eyes and the towns talking all about
that good girl that fell in love too deeply
with a brute who won't tell her she's beautiful.

But I want you to know I like it.
I like feeling the sensual looks on my skin.
I like a compliment from someone who doesn't know me well,
because you do and I hear nothing
nothing at all from you.

You make me feel like I could never come back
and it wouldn't make a difference to you.

But I can and I will.
You know it too.

This side of paradise
Too bitter to remember since I've been home,
so I roll down my window and pretend
that I didn't leave what's been left behind
for no good reason past the decision
that I never should have been yours in the first place.

I've taken quite a stance in the white sand
that settles between my toes in a sun
that's hot as a sweat feels when being caught.
I sometimes see your image cast in the mist of the ocean,
but when I try line myself up with the curves
the mirage has on me,
I go right through you.

No one ever told me hell would feel like you do.

This side of paradise
feels different when you aren't around.
Cuts me with a sharp memory.
I've spoken too much.
I've said enough.
So I just straddle the line
between your paradise and mine
until the wind blows me out of direction.