An observation, I perform: scrawl on an abandoned pier that has been condemned because it is ‘too old’ & ‘no longer safe’
To all the nature film-makers who went to the wrong continent:
A peeling poster from the last night of ‘Live Music!’. It’s called film noir, you know. You’re supposed to see otters flicking in the froth below and think, ‘Brigitte Bardot will be shot soon.’
I am a consumer, a collage-piece with feathers for hair and ‘today in the news’ Mod Podged where my wings would go.
Flecks of rouge and confetti litter this disgusting landscape no-one talks about. There must have been a party here once. Suspended, impish movements ‘could have been miles away’ from the rustling waves below. Maybe if I paint over this place before they tear it down I won’t see that anymore.
Away I traipse along the coast. Bits of ancient animal chafe between my toes. Crunch and fracture silicon, dialogue breaks around shivers of glass. The explosion sounds in a vacuum, distant and the sea slaps over it, biting my loud feet. Wet with purpose I clamber over a whole alphabet I don’t know about.
‘You haven’t hated the presidents enough’: a tattoo I remember inside a co-ed Restroom smelling of Jell-O and piss. Other labels you could see when you sat in the right stall: ‘You are not ‘a feminist’ enough.’ ‘You haven’t met enough people after dark.’
A sharded Solo Cup, shoved into a donation-box: Pay to Enter.
‘Dance to the music,’ spirits cry out of nails in the boards little amplifiers pulsing with sweat and pure sound. ‘You must not be feeling with the right parts of your body if you cannot drown in this rhythm.’ Memories buried above the water.
A slick stain below where we once traded Cash Only to cross, suspended onto a thick blue swamp of life is all there is.
‘I will cut the beat out of you.’ ‘Find your kind of noise.’ ‘You will be left exactly what I think you are.’ ‘Crumble, shale, in my dust while I rattle to the moon.’ Little fortunes taped below the clerk’s desk behind the Payment Window.
A rotted splinter of railing falls into the sea.
It’s the party of a century before this boardwalk goes down. Covered in wallpaper and stickers, the artifacts break into private crises in the bathroom.
‘What an exquisite flop, little fool.’
Migien Mocke is currently a first-year MFA/Poetry candidate at the University of South Florida in Tampa. When she is not writing, reading, or answering student emails, she is drinking tea, baking, farmers’ marketing or generally homebodying to her heart’s content. She wholeheartedly supports Indie movie theaters, loves goofy animals, thinks Stevie Nicks is a goddess, and wants to hear your story!