I hate how the burn of boardwalk wood sears the bottom of my foot, tinting it this awful, raw red. I hate how sand sediment sticks to skin, kissing the strip of unshaved hair on the back of my calf. I hate how my stomach rolls against my one-piece swimsuit, the outline of my bellybutton bulging past my breasts, which sweat under sun. In fact, every part of me feels wet with sweat, soaking the hair hidden under bikini lining, folded beneath my arm and falling from my scalp. The salty sea breeze cuts through it all, thinning it down to pickled straw, mockingly dancing with its dead, withered body. My fate is peppered with pimples, pulsating pours stained by the spray of the Atlantic. I feel the fair skin of my back burn the same raw red as the souls of my feet, soaking under seafoam. This raw red will spread the length of my spine, curling around both arms and legs, before settling just above the heart in the form of fingers squeezing and clawing at the skin until it starts to peel and pucker, puss pushing through each fold of flesh until there’s nothing left to do but let the sea lap at your body, drag you off the shore, and shove you to the bottom. Then, twelve thousand feet underwater, I choke on my own vanity.
