seaside heights

seaside heights. the air was thick with fried dough and and we spilled tokens like lifeblood into neon machines, desperate to win something. my brother laughed when the claw machine actually worked, handed me a stuffed turtle. loud, alive, obnoxiously untouched. i tried to match him, shoving quarters into blinking machines. we walked the beach after, bare feet sinking into cold sand while the ocean whispered things i didn’t want to hear. i etched your name into the sand and immediately destroyed it before the tide could. if i let the water touch it, you’d really be gone. maybe im superstitious. nights like this feel like a goodbye, just drifting toward the end without telling anyone. the sea looked like it wanted me, and for a second, i wanted it back. but my brother asked if i was okay and handed me a piece of saltwater taffy. that was enough to keep me standing under all that sky. 

i wish you were there to hold my hand or i was there to hold yours. i wanted to hear you say something cruel and honest about how everything is temporary and none of this matters, except maybe us. especially us.