You pull back the sands of time,
dig your fingernails in between
the basement of Earth’s enigma
and what are you left to find?

Our little bodies, all textured
with ridges sculpted by Poseidon
himself and colored by the blood
and tears of a sunken dream.

We are strung about in halves,
left for toddler’s clumsy hands to
find and cherish. We are carried miles
inland and glorified, just that single half.

To be a seashell, I am ashamed.
I live my life veiled by grimy sand,
half of myself missing, cracked open
by prodding eyes and curious fingers.

Though I long to find that other side
of my kaleidoscopic exoskeleton, I
still imagine that it is you, the brilliantly
fashioned fan of smiles and freckles

that I remember so fondly. Among the
salty glimmers of hope and sonic
booms of each footprint molded into
the sand, you are out there, screaming.

Have you ever stood atop the bed where
we sleep, us seashells? All broken, different,
some good enough to be found and
others left for the tide to steal.

Even surrounded by those thousands of
rainbow tears, have you found us complete?
Two halves, joined at a precipice of spine
and smooth ceramic, have you yet?

I, who lived the life of a mollusk, so dead;
a dried smile from thousands of years
before, have yet to find that love of my other
piece, I am merely a shell, hollowed by curiosity.

I have loved you every day. I searched the
foaming tide for a match, being sucked back in
by the hopes and gravity of whole truth, of living
and breathing memories, though I cannot remember.

Have you seen my other lung? The lung that when
put together like a puzzle, makes us look like gloried
angel wings? We would be perfect, I have dreams
only a sick brain would dream, all for us.

Nothing is more perfect than two pieces that fit,
yet as my eyes glaze over while gazing into the sun,
I realize that no one has found their shell, their
other half. Because nothing is as surreal as the ocean,

it can make you dream dreams that only a sick
brain would dream. I put down the shell, I retire
my back to the soft sand and my arms folded behind
my head. An inhale for the lost lung, an exhale

for the loved, but lost.