Dewey Beach, Delaware

Crammed into the venue shaped like a barn which was tattooed with street signs and beer ads from faraway Milwaukee, we listened to a cover band play Maggie's music and Nina's music and I realized that simultaneously I can always use someone like you and all you know and how you speak, but I will always love to put my hand up. My music would be there just 2 nights after I left. Damn.


Earlier in the night, a patient chaperone assisted my slow, Midwestern hands in tearing a newly-dead crab into shelled, moist, incredibly delicious pieces. The tablecloth was made from recycled brown paper bags. The wine tasted like somewhere far away from everywhere.

They convinced me that the ocean cures. The sand exfoliated our tanning skin, the sea salt combed through our hair, the roaring Atlantic filled our souls and we laughed at the incoming waves, (after which they laughed at us, as we struggled to re-tie our bathing suits and slid them back into their rightful, pious positions).

They rubbed my back as I sat close to them, retelling my tales about t-shirts I hold while I fall asleep, shoes I throw, moments in the kitchen when I collapse on the floor. They ran their fingers through my hair while I slept on their thighs, re-dreaming dreams about cold coke-a-cola in a bag and quiet spaghetti dinners on clean wooden floors. They hugged me longer than they usually do, squeezing it out of me, distracting me with discussions on the many uses of a coconut.

I escaped one night after 12 plastic cups full of something heavenly-orange, to the bay. As I waded out through the shallow, lukewarm water under ten thousand stars, the clock created hours out of minutes and years out of hours. Every sentence felt like poetry and every step further in brought me further from my reality. Later, I returned to the beach house with a box of jellyfish, horseshoe crabs, sparkling plankton, and a wide smile.