The Outer Banks, NC

I built glass castles

on top of sandy, shifting shores—

until high tide returned

to wash them all away.

I have thrown worry stones

at the full moon’s indifferent eye—

blinded by the searching light—

never finding the lighthouse.

From these brackish waters,

I gathered broken angel wings—

salt-streaked, limp—

I laid them in neat rows.

Baked them beneath

the summer sun—

salt blooming slowly—

like ghost flowers on bone.

Life—

I later framed

in shallow shadow boxes.

a shell, a feather, a name—

curated fragments of magic and ruin—

all pressed beneath glass.

Now lying dust-soft, forgotten—

tucked in the attic’s darkest corners—

where even memory forgets itself.

Eventually we all disappear—

like footprints on a dawn-wet shore—

like castles made of glass and light—

like wings that were never allowed to fly.