You gargled salt water
Pretending you would become the ocean
And maybe you believed you could
But saltwater turned into cheap whiskey and cigarettes
Yet no matter how many you lit
you never went up with the smoke
And I’ll admit you stained me
like the wine you spilled on your father’s carpet
All the sleepless nights
We wasted talking about the future and the people we wanted to become
How our sadness became a lifestyle
And in the blink of an eye I saw everything we would become, all the time we would waste so I gargled salt water to get rid of your taste
And moved to the ocean, yet every time I light one,
I wonder if you can see my smoke signals or the way you stained me
like the wine you spilled on your father’s carpet
Holdyn Bray is a poet and makeup artist from Sacramento, California, who currently resides in Los Angeles. She received a bachelor’s degree in Women and Gender Studies from UCLA in March, 2020. You can find more of her work on Instagram @nydloh .
