by Luree Scott
Beach Body
Mossy, sticky brine
Slithers around my spinal cord
Mucus swirling around each vertebra
Swelling my lungs like the tide
My breath is salt
Seaweed clogged tubes
Arteries filled with water
Palm trees in my trachea
Making beach-scented wheezes
Asthmatic stink of oysters
On my rotten, plastic tongue
Succumbing to the sand
Where we used to laugh
Choking on the memories
Of crumbling castles
Crying over perfect beach bodies
Never fully formed
~*~
The Creature You Found
Muck-like sand that stuck to your shoes
Watered to a deep brown, smooth and waiting
For your feet to mark it deep
As you search for muscles tinted green
And barnacles stuck to rocks
lining the shore
Like the kindergarten crafts of Poseidon’s children
I stay poised on the powdered grains
Ones untouched by the ocean
That are still clean, sterile
Leaves with a simple brush of clumsy fingers
Yet I still get my
hands dirty
Creating a sandcastle to house
The creatures you find
There are pieces of rock and grime under my fingernails
Mossy grime covers yours, I can see it
On your cuticles
But I try to ignore it and hug you anyways
I’m nervous about all the
festering diseases
Can feel my throat swell with some type of salty strep
Gills sprouting
Damned to a life in the water
And I cling to the piece of driftwood
You found
And carved our initials into with your key
We both think it silly
Letters on something as inconsequential and feeble
As driftwood (it’s supposed to be a tree?)
But I still see it, in my mind’s eye
The fact that you tried
And that I am worth a cliché
This creature you found
I cling to it
Still
Less alone
In this life damned to the water
Luree Scott (she/her) is a writer and performer from San Diego, California. She received a BA in Theatre Arts and English from the University of San Diego and is currently an MFA candidate in UCR Palm Desert's Low Residency Program for Creative Writing, where she studies fiction and playwriting. Her previous works can be read in The Alcalá Review, Poets' Choice, Little Thoughts Press, The Bookends Review, GXRL, Grande Dame Literary Journal, and Pink Plastic House: a tiny journal. Her Twitter is @luree_s.