Riptide

Someone clearly spilled her laundry basket

Across the kitchen floor.

One pair of soggy socks laid next to her muddy Kidds

And her striped blue shirt that would hug

Her hefty chest on sticky summer days

Laid wrinkled

Next to her sand-toned bra.

So bland and lifeless.

And those little grey running shorts she always wore

On days when she’d mulch her gardens

Sat partially under her left shoe with her faded white panties still in them.

But they were not alone.

His worn out boxers, the ones with the little beer glasses on them

And the growing hole on the bottom right side

Were lying inside his retro shorts; the ones with the tacky yellow drawstrings

Right next to hers.

And soon I noticed his socks and shoes too,

That were much bigger than hers but touched the tips of her laces,

Like two old ducks kissing, beak to beak.

I smiled.

But suddenly the realization

That this was no ordinary spill

Hit me like a hurricane

And flooded me

With flashbacks

Of the nights

When I’d climb out my window

To avoid the swinging door,

And halfway down the road

I would embrace a kiss,

Familiar hands of my lover

That pulled me down

Onto the grass

Like how a wave will drag you under.

A wave that stings and crushes you

But leaves you laughing moments later

After the rush has died down

And your hair is a mess

And you realize how little power you have

But how much power you can feel

Because you’re young and free and can handle the rough.

I blinked twice at the scattered clothes that now no longer

Seemed scattered, but perfectly aligned.

Still aligned after twenty three years of marriage,

Still aligned even after three children had washed up on shore

And smashed the sandcastles and buried the shovels

And thrown seashells at each other’s heads

Which resulted in a vacation to the hospital room

Instead of an evening playing Lost Island Put-Put.

Still aligned, even after she thought she caught him

Cheating

On the last hole.

There at the top of the stairs, the warm orange

Light from my mother’s nightstand

Seeped out from under the bedroom door,

And soft laughs trickled down the staircase.

I stayed in the kitchen and cried as the clocked

Dinged to three o’clock,

My eyes growing heavy,

My cheeks bursting with the deepest burn.

I should’ve been asleep.

They thought I was asleep.

I should’ve been asleep

Sleeping soundly as if I didn’t exist

As if I was unborn

As they were still only 18

Like me;

Still playing roughly in the waves.