One albino bug crawling on a piece of moss.
Long antennae.
Simple legs.
It jumps, flying down onto a piece of pine.
Walking across sand and gravel. Crawls across a stick.
A dead albino moth is nearby.
Dead leaves scatter the ground.
The bug is no longer in sight. It has disappeared, just like death itself. These albinos are white like bones with no flesh.
These rotting leaves are full of holes. They curl downwards, as if gripping to what’s left of this world. Their skeletons are so easy to see. Their skeletons can so easily be torn apart.
Autumn is the season of decay. We have just seen the birth of Spring. The youth of Summer. Fall is the day of old age. Named after the leaves which have lost their grip on life itself.
Winter is the upcoming death. Melting snow matches white bones. White stones dot this beach. The tide is coming in with white foam.
White houses dot the other side of the water. They’re vacant, empty. Each house has at least one framing of white. When the sun bleaches away all the color that will be all that is left.
Tall pine trees with thin trunks surround every edge of the beach.
In the sky there are faint wisps of white clouds. The sky is only faintly blue.
The distant hum of a motorboat. The distant hum of a motorized lawn mower. Of a weed wacker. The sound of water crashing on the beach.
Logs submerged in the water. This water claims all. It will take all. A piece of white plastic lying on the rocks.
The ache in an upper leg. The ebb of a rash on one’s lower back.
~
Mercury-Marvin Sunderland (he/him) is a transgender autistic gay man from Seattle with Borderline Personality Disorder. He currently attends the Evergreen State College and works for Headline Poetry & Press. He’s been published by UC Riverside’s Santa Ana River Review, UC Santa Barbara’s Spectrum Literary Journal, and The New School’s The Inquisitive Eater. His lifelong dream is to become the most banned author in human history. He’s @Romangodmercury on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.