Thrill Seekers

Thrill Seekers

He left me standing there on the beach 

And I felt so stupid as the sand buried my feet. 

The water washed back and forth 

And held me in place 

Like a statue 

Held to the dirt. 




The ocean roared 

And he couldn’t hear me, 

But I screamed as loudly as I could. 

My scream mixed with the roar of the waves, 

And it killed me to watch him walk away. 

I went blank.  





I don’t know how else to put it. 

How do you process the end 

When it’s part of your center? 





Before any talk of leaving, 

He’d told me about his plan, 

His familiar plan... 

I never wanted children because 

I knew I wasn’t mature enough 

Or dedicated enough. 

I knew he wasn’t.

I knew we were meant for one another 

But for nothing more. 

But he had other plans. 





Why? 

Why would he need a creation to validate his power? 

Hadn’t we done this before 

And again 

And still now? 

What did it mean? 

Was I not enough? 

We disappear and forget and circle around 

To this start again. 

We’ve done it forever, 

But forever I forget 

As does he. 

He came to me and announced that he wanted to love, 

And to love meant to create and to build 

And to breathe life into some minutia 

Spat out into flesh. 





We are enough, 

I said. 

We are together here 

And you remember what happened before. 

But even as I said the words I could hardly remember what happened before. 

The clock read 11:07 

And it smelled of mud and ash 

And there was nothing 

But a moment 

Erased and replaced with Christmas lights. 

Dementia is harrowing. 

It’s unrelenting and cowardly: 

It disappears in the fast lane 

Through the slow moving traffic 

And it stands in the West 

In the sand by the ocean. 

We used to go to Santa Cruz 

And ride the roller coaster, 

The one that was build back before I was born. 

If I remember correctly, 

It survived the great earthquake 

And since that time 

Thrill-seekers have paid the price of admission 

And ridden it to their heart’s content.

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