beach


Expanse of sand comprised of rocks and organic matter, corroded and shrivelled to tiny grains tossed by the wind and tides. Pebbles, shards of glass and plastic that have resisted the vicious smoothing of the ocean hide beneath its surface. They bite at my feet as I walk.

All eventually is worn and crumbles to become less under the water’s relentlessness, unrecognisable as how it began.

*

Names remain: carved deep into the jagged crags jutting sharply towards the top of the bluff, or scratched faintly at their base, half hidden by sand.

Toby.

Jez.

Detty.

Rob.

Dad.

Some cannot be read: covered or ground down by the sandpaper-soft touch of the sand blowing and washing over them, their distinctiveness becomes less noticeable. Their purpose remains the same.

Seeking immortalisation of their titles and writing in an object we see as everlasting purely because it outlives us every time.

*

The waves crawl nearer with each tumultuous crash of water against water. It bears with it the smell of rotten things and the taste of salt.

Glass, shells, plastic, bones, tangles of plant. Mementoes from living, discarded and swept away.

The dregs of billions of creatures, moments of carelessness and existence laps at my toes.

*

The outer layer of the sand is riddled with dents, distinguishable as pawprints and shoe marks.

The patterns of the pads and soles are traceable in their precision, yet vague.

I cannot tell who made them; how long ago.

I know they have been, but not where they went.

My own steps sync with their past strides, crushing them from view.

When I lift my foot, the remnants dissolve into my own trace, and they might never have been present at all.

*

I walk forward; I walk back. The dry graininess sticks to my heels and clings to my legs.

Every direction I go in my footprints walk behind me. Sunk into the sand, they linger as where I stood and moved but am no longer.

The water burnishes the shore on its climb: it washes the surface back to smoothness, fills in the dips and crevices back to featurelessness.

Standing at the edge of the waterline, it begins to creep into the gaps between my toes and the imprints at the sides of my soles, fading the marks before they have been left.

I wonder if I stood there long enough, whether the sand and water would cover me.

I could be washed with stinging salt.

Stand still until I become smooth and seamless.