broken-hearted seashells
by
silver supernovas
when i was a little girl, we went to florida. i forget the city, i forget the hotel, but i remember the ocean. it was so big and blue and the beach looked like millions of tiny gold doubloons. seashells were mysteries, and the giant conch shells were telephones to creatures who lived deep underneath the waves. i could have stayed there forever, on that beach, where the sand burned my feet and the pebbles scratched them and i smelled like salt and seaweed and happiness.
i still remember the outfit i was wearing when i went with my mother for a walk on that burning sand. blue overalls with tweety bird on the front; my six year old self was proud to sport the icon. we left our shoes and walked in the little bit of water that overlaps the sand and it was like a picture; me and my mother, walking barefoot in the ocean. i picked up a pretty shell that looked like a heart. then i tripped.
i fell backwards into the ocean and my knees scraped those tiny pebbles over and over until they were bleeding and raw. the salt burned and i cried. i remember looking down and seeing tweety getting wet and my bloody knees and then i was underwater. i closed my eyes and cried again. my mother pulled me out and we went straight back to the hotel.
later as i stood in the shower and the water stung my bloody legs i realised that i'd dropped my seashell.
i grew up to be sad. i still go to the ocean, but i'll never forget the terror i felt when i fell into the ocean that day. i will also never forget how comforting it was, like a rocking chair that i could stay in forever, warm and endless. i sometimes wonder what it would have been like to sink and sink and sink until i was blanketed by the bronze sand, staring up at an empty sun until i am forced to close my eyes.
the salt and seaweed and happiness has long since washed off of my skin, replaced by tears and chapped lips and anger.
i live in florida now, further from the ocean but still close. one day i'll go back, and maybe then i'll find my six year old self, standing ankle-deep in the waves with bloody knees, looking out to see if neverland is beyond the skyline.
i think i'll hold her hand.
non-fiction.
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length was intended.
-ariana