modified excerpt from a tiny rambling journal

i went to the beach

said none of the things i meant to

and listened to the surf,
remembering past Augusts.
past beaches, past sunsets, past lives -
the long nights of late summer.
i sat listening to

teenage girls in white plastic chairs

the Septembers
spent in love and alone and writerly at sunset,
looking for Mardou's silhouette on the horizon,
pretending to know the secret longing of Russians.

beautiful fictions

the arrangement of

my thoughts

superimposed

over the women

i wanted them to be.