emotion in the ocean

This is the nineteenth of a future thirty poems from a 30-day poetry challenge. Today's assignment was "poetry in motion," and we were further challenged to make it move. Here's mine. [Had to read faster than intended to get it in under a minute.]

emotion in the ocean

I want to put my feet

in every ocean of the world.

I've only met five so far.

How many seas are there?

And I know it's basic

instagram shit

to take pictures of your

toes on the sand touching infinity--

it's peak cringe to have

your toes done and also

be on the beach,

I guess it's the impertinence,

the audacity of taking a break.

Capitalism doesn't want anyone to be happy.

I am happy anyway.

The beach reminds me of her,

not because we went to the beach

but because she once lived

in Hawaii and would tell me

stories while trying to cut up a

coconut in a 1970s avocado-green kitchen.

I've forgotten the stories

but I remember the ocean.

The ocean remembers everything.

I come from island and peninsula people.

Oceans and volcanoes are what

my atoms crave, these dangerous

beautiful things that remind you

that you're alive.

Being landlocked makes me unhappy.