【by Maggie Ondrey】

I have no idea how the day started, it was not something I’ll remember for the rest of my life
I know I’ll carry it in all the tender and newly grown parts of me though—
I won’t be able to see it when I look back after a while (maybe writing will help)
But I will always know how it feels, how awake I was at 3pm or sometime in the afternoon.

I have moments of flash, developed in a dark room where too much light damages how I am able to reminisce on what my friends did for me
Moments I can only see after I had to sit in the room with the developer, swat around the empty space for the humming orange safety light.
Of me and two friends, a twin sibling and a Hurricane named Ernesto all sitting in the muddied sand of an empty screaming tide beach.

Where we are playing a game that only the twin and I have familiarity with, so we will teach the other two how to sit up straight as the white cocky waves crash into our bodies, hissing as it pulls back into the thirsty sea—and the whole point is to lock arms and keep each other from being swept out, there are no singular winners—it is strictly a team effort.

After playing for awhile we will get very good at telling which waves will have the best ability to knock one of us down, and we will each promise to warn each other and squeeze our arms tighter the next time we see the signs of trouble and the possibility of getting lost in the sea, never finding our way back.