the Scratcher

In between songs, the bar is entirely quiet, Monday revelers with no need to shout their angst into the void. There's a long stretch of tables to your right sitting empty, the bartender wears a sweater like she always does even though it is summer and you haven't looked in your sweater drawer since March. He spoke of foliage and you thought of it as little more than creative liberties, surely Christmas is merely something we invent in boredom, this bead of sweat has lingered between my breasts for as long as I can remember and were my brows not always so white?

We sat on the beach again this morning, toes in the sand and lungs reaching toward infinity, him with his peaceful hums and me with my mind on fire in the sunshine, everything was perfect and even in sleep we smiled. I stood in the waves later, soft fat waves like playful baby seals, letting them roll over me and thinking how grateful I was to greet them without all that sorrow in my bones, without that desperate plea to cleanse me, to rid me of the unbearable pain I couldn't seem to dispose of myself. The ocean is a playground now, a rainbow, a cloud, my to do list is a million pages long but dammit I'm doing it. Do you hear me?

I'm swimming myself to shore.