Issue #5 November 2015
Detail from Evening Wind by Tim Frisch

Marty McConnell

lies about staying alive in the multiverse

All the beautiful people go look at the ocean.
All the beautiful people go look at the ocean and say

it is beautiful and immense and makes them feel
small. But in a good way. All the beautiful people

are not beautiful people in a traditional way, not
magazine stand beautiful people but I envy them

anyway. Because they are looking at the ocean
and feeling small but in a good way and they seem

happy. They know where their hands are. Some of them
are holding hands, these non-traditionally beautiful people

and I envy them their solidity. Their location and their painfully
photographable joy in admiring it. Their mouths hang open

like miniature cranes, the ones that dig huge amounts
of things like rocks to lift but these are empty. Except

for the teeth. Anyway they are looking at the ocean
and they seem happy. They have rolled up their pants

though their shoes are still on and the sun is sunny
and the rocks are rocky and one of them looks like he's about

to lose his balance but no. He's OK. All the beautiful people
are careless about their beauty, like it's just

something they woke up with today. Like a hangover
or enough coffee for five. You can probably tell that I've had

a bad day. I'm hungry and I'll probably start bleeding
from the body this week. These pictures of beautiful people

make me simultaneously nostalgic and enraged. I know some
of their names. I'm not really enraged. But I do envy them

the ocean and easy friendship. I do wish I could be dumbstruck
by water, I do wish someone were here holding my hand.

Between two fingers, someone unidentified is holding a tiny
sand crab. The metaphor is apparent. I would like someone

to make me breakfast. I would like the ocean
to be not so far away. This is not about the ocean. There's a lake

three blocks from here so immense you can't see the other shore.
I could walk there now. I could put my face in the freezing water

and not die. I could answer the phone. I could go tell my mother
that I don’t resent the way she raised me. There are beautiful people

everywhere. It's Sunday, just past Easter, there's rebirth right
around now in almost every religion but I'm impatient

and faithless. That is also a lie. I know that we are divine,
but also I believe we construct our own lives. The beautiful people

have packed up their picnic. The sun where they are has started
to fade. They did not bring a picnic. They've written something

with a stick in the sand. I have no idea where they've gone.