Spent my last dollar getting to the beach

What is the harm in calling yourself what you want to become? Maybe saying it out loud, maybe faking it until it is true?

It won't hurt to try I am just scared sometimes, that's all

so, I am a poet now. 

You don't always have to be born one. I decided by the seaside today. 

I can be anything as long as I am by the ocean. I'll be anything if I feel at home. 

Every drop in the sea is a lullaby to an infant. Every grain of sand, the work of a thousand men. 

The seashells stoned from the thrashing around. That wind isn't very nice and if I didn't feel it against me constantly, I'd dare say it didn't exist. How else did the tide drag all those shells to my feet? 

My feet. Those I do like. Those I think real. Because I am real. I'm not always what I want to be, but I can say I always exist. 

The mermaids, they do not say much. They can smell your desperation to speak with them.

Smells of desperation with underlying hints of doubt, they will tell you nothing.

Offer them shiny things and ask before drinking the water, they'll throw you a line.

I want to be like them. Waking up, mirror in hand, gawking over myself. My mind made up. 

The sea tried to kill me once when I was seven. The mermaids stole my family heirloom ring. 

All these things and still I would spend years in the muck that is the beach. 

The billboard beer selling venue, a dollar, another another another dollar

I spend my last paycheck on the gas to get there and the mermaids know that. 

I saw starfish the size of my head. 

I forgot what kissing feels like already.

It is better that I forget. 

Mermaids don't date; they are simply infatuated with themselves. 

That better suits me. 

That is a poet if I knew better. You'd have no way to prove if I knew better.