this calling, this memory
am I not still building castles in the sea?

the beach.

they seem like home movies, like super 8, or early camcorder footage, these memories, I remember them so vividly, but yet I feel detached, like this was some other life, in so many ways it was, the sun this never ending light above my shoulders, the glint off the stray bubbles as the tide retreats, standing in the surf wiggling my feet slowly getting buried in not so quicksand, the discovery, hunting for crabs along the jetty, to catch them for no other reason to catch them and show my cunning against the pinch of the really big ones, seeing the sand crabs like benign kamikazes diving into the sand burrowing like madmen between the constant brush of the ocean up against the land, an ice cold bologna sandwich, brown deli mustard on a poppy kaiser roll, so much more delicious as we stopped by the local deli as a morning ritual on such days, the turnstile and gates of bradley beach, the faded wood dressed up in white every summer like a buffed vintage car, still showing age, the swings that seemed higher than towers, or skyscrapers even, the creaking sound they made back and forth, I never much liked going on them myself, I preferred the old wabbly spin thing, did it ever have a name? I am sure there is one technically, many playgrounds had them back those days, you would try to make it fast enough to have someone flung off, probably not a thing these days, I survived mostly though, I guess, they would pass in a blink and a dash, not an iota of energy left in reserve I would crash on the ride home, not worried like I may now might, about traffic, gas prices, going to work the next day, the bills, no, those were far removed… I supposed if I could invent the greatest thing it might be that, a drug or something that could elicit a journey into that memory, that time, to feel that sun, and sip on a capri sun or three, perhaps a bomb pop if the stars aligned… I wish to travel there once more, at least, in my mind.