Boy by the Beach by Fransivan MacKenzie

CW: Suicide

Alex,

in your funeral,

your sister spoke of your obsession with yellow dusks

when you were still too young to realize

how cruel they were.

How through the blinding face of each sunset,

the night showed up into the horizon

to give way to the hours that would toss you into the future

when you could no longer be who you were -

a kid as wild as a seagull,

a boy who jumped with his hands in the air

to reach for the sky in sheer violence,

a set of footprints trailing the length of Sta. Monica Beach,

claiming it his

before it claimed him a decade later.

Now, I stare outside my bedroom window

and picture you chase the wind as a seven-year-old,

marveled at the golden streak of everything.

I see you past the blur of this town

that pushed you into the cusp of unbecoming.

I imagine your feet teasing the currents of the sea

to take you into eternity,

not knowing that one day, they would.

Alex, they would,

and you would let them.

One day, you would cease flirting with the turquoise tides

at the golden hour.

One day, you would just

commit.

---

Fransivan MacKenzie is a nineteen-year-old storyteller born and raised in the Philippines. She is the author of Out of the Woods, a chapbook of poetry and prose. Her works also appeared in Transition Magazine, The Racket, Jaden Magazine, CP Quarterly Review and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter (@fransivanlights).