long live youth culture

i don't have any low tide memories except the star tearing the crayfish asunder. and i try to memorise the patterns on its outer layer but i can barely even recall my own prints. do you also search for imprints on my skin like a blind tentacle feeling its way above a hole in the rocks? because all we want is to be clean. when we wash up ashore, we want to be pristine. Aphrodite, for example. was she immaculate? i am going to find the limbs of the cray to preserve its meaning. but you could just swear the conch is telling you what is right to do. so you pick up a smooth glass and try to barter with me. the sight of an incomplete exoskeleton throws you off. so i try to persuade the starfish to bring out its stomach and pry it open. maybe i could fix the hardest part of this thing. maybe we could let it go. because it's cruel for us to let a creature experience its first hunger. but the miniscule parts are already dissolved. so i just take the trade and maybe say something atrocious like: for you, i'd try to grow what's missing. for you i'd live. for you, i'd wash up to shore in pieces and then reattach. for you i'd take the plunder case and push back the tide.