Creased beneath my feet
Malibu fades like a postcard worn,
peach light bleeding through wingtip torn.
Dorothea sits, unfocused, still,
as coastline slides against her will.
The shore drifts past, the engine sighs,
along with truths she never tries.
Blood and bone flash across the screen,
girls should not love so loud, so mean.
Bodies collide, then break apart,
hands on throats, teeth, ribs, and heart.
The sound is sharp, the motion wild,
then headphones ripped away by mother, child.
The screen goes blank, the violence gone,
like it was never playing on.
Just silence left, abrupt and thin,
all that noise still trapped within.
Bathroom air is tight and pale,
thin as a truth she cannot tell.
Her comb slips down, strikes tile below,
no time to stop, no time to know.
She drops the parchment folded flat,
a life bent neatly, just like that.
All the things she never tried,
all the hours that passed her by.
It is not a letter,
not a plea,
not a truth meant to set her free.
A photograph
staring back at me.
Under a lamppost, Sixth Street light,
burning small suns into the night.
Salt wind tangled through their hair,
someone laughing, unaware.
Someone already turning away,
heart half gone from the street that day.
She freezes there, then shoves it back,
like guilt she keeps on quiet track.
Like words she wishes she could erase,
like doors she slammed in softer days.
Like bruises hid beneath the skin,
no one asks where they have been.
Outside the window, Malibu
melts to clouds of washed-out blue.
The pier stands thin, a splintered line,
the ocean barely marks its time.
She steps away,
slow and small,
soft as shadows on the wall.
Gone,
but not like wind that flies,
this leaving lingers in her eyes.
She thinks of those who never knew,
the one who knew her through and through.
The fights, the heat, the summer glow,
that held them fast and would not go.
It is strange how years outrun,
how people fade, how moments run.
Planes lift off, the past grows thin,
but photographs
do not give in.
They stay the same, they do not bend,
they do not soften, break, or end.
Still and silent, sharp and true,
time held frozen in the blue.
Copyright ©
May May | Year Posted 2025
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