by Darcy Duncan
Into the dark we swim.
You tell me your name underwater.
It sounds different than it did on land.
More like mine: anonymous.
Ebb and Flow / Rock and Limpet / Seagull and Chips.
The beach sticks to our limbs that are slick with sand.
We use the sea to wash off, the sun to towel dry.
Our childlike immunity, naked to embarrassment.
We promise to fill our brains with cement,
To plaster our minds as they are in the moment.
We watch the chilling oceans of truth lie flat before us.
The knowledgeable waves that hide unknown powers
To scrape our heads along the seafloor.
We were conceived from drowning in these watery conductors of dreams.
Notions of adulthood lurking beneath.
We wrestled with unfirm waves that always looked a little bigger from land.
Now, we can both float, we can both forget.
The very same sand will learn to fill the pock marks on our aging faces.
Left over from our plentiful pursuits for higher beauty.
When it does, I want you to remember when we would dig a hole “to Australia!”
Desperate to know the secrets of beyond.
Our certain kind of hunger to transcend the physical world.
It was heaven to watch the sand erode the walls of our temple.
Gods of our own Pompeii, pretending we could prevent natural disasters.
Notice how young girls like us lose their names inside their own bodies.
How simple, free, undemanding was life; were we.
The impact on the world we made lying in the sand – angels forever.
© Darcy Duncan
Author’s note: “I’ve been feeling super nostalgic recently and mourning the simplicity of my childhood. Here are poems about a feeling that goes beyond the definition of friendship or young (queer) love. It is a connection too deep to define, yet so easily lost as we age.”
Darcy Duncan (she/her) loves costume parties, pastries, and Phoebe Bridgers. She is a 20-something creative writing student that has absolutely no idea what she is going to do with her life – but that’s ok.
Find her on Instagram @darcy.y.
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