Waterproof eyeliner is a shield, soaked
black hair, like charcoal, pressed against
frozen numb ear lobes, holding in place water-damaged plastic buds,
once blasting melodies of black and blue emotion,
with hands clenched in fists of futility.
The jagged edges of her beauty have
the ocean boiling again, and the clams
spat out bursts of fire.

It was a late weekday moon,
the beach was silent but the sound
of their heavy breaths swooped across the sand,
and their laughter rose like the waves.
“Killin’ that bottle to get smashed.”
She was convinced so eloquently,
before downing a gulp of bittersweet liquid
before drowning in a gulp of bittersalt sea.

Sarah Rose Sedwick.
Swallowed by the waves.
The icy Pacific Ocean water
claiming territory
in her lungs,
dark, salty deepness chilling to
the core of her soft bones.

A memory is written
on a clean blank sheet.
Nothing now but
a paper boat
in the wind.