Tales of the Broken Social Scene: 7/4 Shoreline

After dusk, we dragged couches down to the beach.
The fire was smoky and the sand was wet. It was too cold, too late in the year
but we stayed out most of the night.

Our conversations were like accordions,
stretching, elongating, singing, folding into themselves, and
everything moved at half-speed. Late-night seagulls
flicked up against the cold red sunset.

Haina, fingers steepled against her little pointed face told us,
"If you try to steal the beat, the beat will steal you."
James sat on the sand, back against the couch, feet bare and white,
jeans damp, watching the tide and warning us, "It's coming; it's
coming in now." Ian Curtis told me quietly that it was time,
and he wanted to get away from lies that he lived, to love what he lost.
I counted stars, told stories.
Before we went home at dawn, I helped to
push the couches out to sea.