Gabriel Ricard

Liberation at South Vanderton Beach

There’s no shame in going to the beach

with a potential loved one,

and trusting them enough to bury

you up to your neck in the sand,

and leave you there overnight.

It’s only a problem if you keep doing it,

and keep acting absolutely stunned

that it keeps going down in the exact same way.

If she bites off the more stressed-out

parts of your forehead and eyebrows,

tells you to strongly consider

praying for a sudden oceanside hurricane,

and leaves with your wallet,

you need to decide then and there

if this is really the best way to find someone

who can guide your heart,

without wrapping theirs up in cheap scotch tape.

Do you really think so?

Then go ahead,

and keep your weekends free

through the duration of the longest endless summer

any of us have ever known.

Just try to act like that stupid look on your face

is something you’re working on

for yet another one man show

about yet another aging white guy

who thinks its more relatable for the audience

when there isn’t a drop of personal responsibility

to be found for millions of light years.

Don’t get into the habit of telling people

that you never saw the physical and emotional abuse coming.

Certainly don’t fucking tell her that.

Just go to the beach.

Try to have a good time.

Maybe,

if you really can’t stop finding your way back home,

you can think about just getting beyond the scope

of being lost for only a little while,

if she buries you in the sand again.

You could do something like

without even realizing it.

Gabriel Ricard writes, edits, and occasionally acts. He writes a monthly column called Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo at Drunk Monkeys, as well as a monthly called Make the Case with Cultured Vultures. His 2015 poetry collection Clouds of Hungry Dogs is available from Kleft Jaw Press, while his 2017 novel Bondage Night is available through Moran Press. Recent releases include A Ludicrous Split (Alien Buddha Press/Split chapbook with Kevin Ridgeway) and Love and Quarters (Moran Press). He is a writer and performer with Belligerent Prom Queen Productions, currently working on a follow-up to their 2016 immersive theater show Starman Homecoming. His movie podcast Cinema Hounds, co-hosted with an actual man from Florida named Chris Bryant, is currently in its second season. Gabriel currently lives on Long Island with his wife, three crazed ferrets, and an inability to stop ordering delivery.