The ocean hushed the sounds that the end of day left behind. It was a lullaby known all too well to the soft sand. Her body sank into the earth. Remnants of heat the sand gave off during the day warmed and relaxed the tension she had kept throughout the years. The light reflected in her eyes, glazed over, staring off. Her head was a fumble of the same image forcing its way into her mind repeatedly. The tears had left her there on that beach, only to fall into a numbing lull that followed the push and pull of the waves.

The flashing lights that were lost in the distance had gone. The shadows had moved across the earth was the only way to tell that time had even passed. Her footprints led her to this spot. Eyes closing; the images flood every part of her being.


Her mom was never the type to date the kind of men who wooed her with flowers and fancy Swiss chocolates. Rich seemed to be different though. Sweet nothings whispered into her ears every night led her straight down a path of falling hard much too fast. Exchanging bodies in late night sessions left her feeling as though she needed this from him. No one else would want her. Those words wormed their way into her head after hearing them from him.

She would never understand why her mom needed a man in her life. Maybe she was just far too broken. The feeling of being wanted crawled on her skin like a disease. Almost as if she would have to tear at herself to find a calm underneath it all. If she were to though, would there even be anything underneath? Thoughts like this drove her mother mad, but when Rich came around the thrill for a cheap escape faded away. It was a façade that slowly grew into love, and when the bruises started to be painted across her skin she stopped looking in the mirror. She couldn’t bring herself to look at what he had done, because the mirror would shatter and her love wouldn’t be real.

Late night pleas and interventions became a routine. Trying to escape it all she would hide upstairs waiting for Rich to go home, only to rush to make sure her mom wasn’t bleeding this time. Eyes red, puffed from tears, broken. Utterly broken like a doll tossed around. Whispering that it’ll be fine in the morning, kissing her mother’s forehead goodnight and dragging her body to her own room. It was a life she was used to, a life that kept getting worse. That man’s rage filled the corners of the room, surrounding, making every breath harder and heavier to take in.
Loud bangs on the door, faint breath of whiskey lingering in the air. His anger surrounded her one last time. A scream. The light reflected in her eyes, glazed over, starring off.
And she ran. That body lying there so cold. She ran away from a stranger. Because she couldn’t look at what he did to her mother. Because then her mother’s lovely dream would be shattered.
The lights had finished their dance across the sky. All the night left behind was with her on that beach. The sand shared secrets with her, the ocean sang her sorrow back to her and out into itself; locking it away in its depths, a tale for another moonlit night.