The white pickup truck slammed to a stop, suddenly, on the side of the road it had just been careening down, and three people hopped out, leapt atop the road-barrier, and walked down it tightrope-walker style. They stopped at an old tree stump on the other side of the barrier—the side without a road—and teetered onto it woahh.
Look, you can see where it gets deep
Where?
Where it gets dark all of a sudden
I think that's actually seaweed
They whispered wow wow wow wow in wind that might've just toppled them over; they whooped; they swapped interlocked arms for tightly-squeezed hands and back again. Time passed; they passed by time. At the bottom of the bluff, the ocean gently lapped at a miniature beach, keeping rhythm through its surging and retreating, surging and retreating.
To do: Rdng for clss; lndry; email Sharon; whoop out to the sea; schdl career advsng appt; cln rm; car oil chng; eml K.; eml B.; schdl mtg w/ a miniature beach at the bottom of the bluff; longing; the playlist of love songs named for her (swiveling your thumb around your ancient iPod you still use); I remember the first time I swore ("stupid"); I remember being a child sitting on top of my mom's bed one night; tracing the green flowery patterned bedspread; dull glow of a bedside table lamp; and deciding to remember that moment; stick!; and every now and then it resurges. I write to-do lists on loose electric pink sticky notes and hope their blemished sticky backs will cling to my wall; hw; eml; schdl; lndry; I'll remember; careening forward; tumbling; tightrope-walking; we got to a humongous tree stump that has weeds springing up out of its once-trunks, and dirt in its crevices. Ella went first, teetering to the furthest spot, and Nick to the middle, and I to the closest, grasping onto a wispy plant for some kind of steadiness. And I looked down at the ocean against the strip of sand, and thought of giving in to the wind, tumbling down the bluff, meeting the waves like the sand does, becoming a wave, surging and retreating. Coming coming coming; playlist of love songs named for her; away away away; What did you do over break? I hung onto a wispy plant. Free and stuck at once.
