Of The Sand People

Once when I was young,

I journeyed far from my home to the ocean

Where we would swim as if we were invincible

With waves crashing above our heads,

and water so deep at some points we wished we had a boat.

Our goal on such missions,

Was to reach the furthest sandbars,

and dig our feet into the sand,

To search with our deleterious toes,

Which was often illegal,

For sand dollars.

For some reason I never felt guilty for killing them,

They live just as we do, in communities under the sea,

But we snatched them up like villains,

Dropping them into buckets of bleach.

Once during such an adventure,

Or rather, on our way from the hotel to the beach,

My sister and I stumbled upon quite an extraordinary thing.

As we walked through the grassy dunes, little creatures scurried about

In the dimly lit morning.

Into their holes they went, for fear of humanity.

Even little things we knew from a glimpse as something new,

Dashed for the safety of the sand crab holes.

These creatures were new to us, they moved rather quickly, and had only two legs.

Even at a quick glimpse we could tell that they weren't walking,

They were getting into the holes as fast as they could in every direction.

Some appeared to fly, and some appeared to turn into sand,

We were instantly distracted from our usual activity,

and became obsessed with seeing these critters again.

Plots of luring them out consumed our minds,

Even came to us in our dreams, and every morning at dawn,

We were on the sands,

Trying to discover something new.

At first, we tried cruelty, we would cover their holes with sea shells,

Or flick sand into them.

The sand crabs would just emerge and move the shells,

Or relocate the sand.

Then we tried gifts, we built castles and embellished their holes with muscles,

Partly because we were afraid to step on the holes,

Partly to see if they would retrieve the dying muscles.

Sleeping the first night was the hardest,

Knowing that we'd seen fairies, or whatever they were.

(In later years, I've come to know them as sand nymphs.)

We knew there were more than crabs down there,

and we said this too ourselves often.

It seemed like a game of pretend gone delusion.

All day for three days we appeared to play in the sand,

Like a couple of kids with extreme imaginations,

Mom left us alone,

Extended our stay for two more days,

and acknowledged that we were on a mission.

When Castles yielded no results,

We went back to cruelty,

and flooded the holes.

When we were nice, they gave us nothing,

When we were rude, they were rude back,

By squirting the water back at us,

Or by still, giving us nothing.

On our final night, we went into the sea, and fetched sand dollars, as was tradition,

Just like Christmas to us, and we gave the fairies one final chance to show themselves to us,

We built a small castle, around our sand dollars,

and while we worked, I sang to myself of my love for the sands and the sea,

and how I hated to leave,

and a bunch of small lights emerged from the sands like large fireflies,

and danced with my sister and me.

Dare to Dream

“ You must be careful,” a voice said,
“The shadow people play mind games with even the brightest stars.”

You open your eyes, the world is black and white, but the grass is green,
something you note as unusual for winter.
The grass fades to grey, the trees turn yellow,
a yellow so bright it feels like it's burning holes in your eyes
you sing Sunspots to yourself,
it rains on you, and only you.

You grow taller, you look out a window,
it is round.

You are surrounded by water, but it looks like a swimming pool.
Someone yells something about rust,
your hair becomes long, coiled and tangled like dreads,
but they are guitar strings.

You say something in a language you don't speak,
you remember it from childhood.
The shadow people hear you.
They dance around you in a circle,
you start to spin,
you become dizzy.

There is only one shadow now, and she wants you to follow her.
You refuse, you're dizzy.
She looks at you, she waves you on,
you feel the urge to follow her now,
she runs.

You chase her through the grass,
around the trees and across the pages of a book.
You are pulled into the binding.

You start to see in color, but it's like paint that's flaking off.
You think hard, and you pretend to see the color,
you trip on a root from a tree,
you see the shadow girl.
You see a sword with a jeweled handle,
you look at it,
you wonder what you would do with it,
you swink it around a bit,
you say
“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”
you pull two diamonds off the sword hilt, dump them in your pocket and lean the sword against a tree.
You continue in the direction of the shadows, you realize this should have been a circle,
but you end upon a mountain, you can see for miles,
you see the sun, you see three moons.
You see in full color.
The life around you dies before your eyes.
You stand alone, and you smell bad.

After everything is dead, the night envelops you.
The night is as black as it is under a stone.

The shadow girl comes.
She has a heart, or a star in her hands,
she lights the way.
The object becomes a weapon and she plunges it into your stomach.
It becomes wax.
It melts from your body heat and mixes with your blood.
It turns to gold and your body soaks it up,
sealing the gash.

She starts to become human, and she takes your hand.

The sky that was clear becomes ridden with obstruction.
All color you once saw is gone.
You wonder about the shadow girl,
she is like nothing else.
Her lips turn bright red.

You think “That's not what I wanted”
They fade.

She becomes your shadow.
You are standing in a desert.
You hear the ocean.
You hear laughing.
You hear a car door slam.

You cant see anything.
Your eyes feel as though they've been sewn shut.
You smell salt and sunscreen.

You feel the warmth of fire.
You settle down, you cannot fathom finding your way when you cannot see.
When you move to sleep, your eyes open again.
You're in the desert still, but the fire you felt isn't near.
You spin around,
you heard a noise.

A car drives by.
You're standing on the side of the road with a dozen roses.
You eat one of the flowers.
It tastes like sour milk.
You spit it out.
You see a woman in white,
she looks like she came from an old movie.
She looks like me.
You consider talking to her, she's familiar.
She sees you,
she looks afraid.
She turns into a deer.

She gets hit by a car.


You are hungry.
You can't remember ever having anything to eat.
The car is smashed, but not enough to stop running.
The driver is breathing,
you put her in the back seeat.
She becomes a cougar.
She claws at you,
you squint your eyes,
she becomes a shadow.

You reach what looks like civilization.
There is no one around.
The shadow girl goes away.

You take a leak in the parking lot.

A woman approaches.
While you look at her, and realize the situation will only grow to become awkward,
she becomes more beautiful.

She looks at you from every angle,
and reaches out her hand.

You reach to meet her halfway,
and at the second your fingertips meet hers,
she turns into sand.

You are pushed from behind, you see sheets of music,
You hit your head.

You wake up,
you hear an EKG,

you hear a voice that you can't place.
You know the girl is in the room,
you breathe,
you run your tongue across your teeth,
they're clean.
They're sharp.
The girl says,
“Animal, knock that shit off”

She hums a bar from a song,
she says, “I'll make it to the moon if I have to crawl”

You open your eyes, you see the shadow girl with a star in her hands.
You whisper
“Sunless”

She drops the star.
A child is born.
A child with white eyes, like diamonds.
you check your pocket,
they're still there.