Strawberries On The Beach Poem by Leah Ayliffe

While the breeze ignites a calming song
Strawberries in the sand
Rocky cliffs tall
My toes play with the water and memories of a time when we were dancing on the rooftop at night flashed like the movies:
A Portuguese man with the right mixture of cocaine and a fashionable gin & tonic

Bright lights, tile walls
Stars glittering with the call
The Rolling Stones took us to another place
Getting lost in our signs
What is your destiny? Honey,
do you believe in fate, in serendipity?
I do
and this journey along the coast is changing the road I'm on

I don't know the direction I need
But I do what I do, when I want to
An unknown dream to search for

Can there be eternal happiness?
I've always been the kind of girl whose never been satisfied
and it'd be a lie if I said that the uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction scares me
Cause I would hate to be stuck in one constant state of emotion.

And I confess it's rather fun
to be in a confused mess in who I am and what to do
in this world that rings both beauty and pain for those
who walk around aware of the sunrise after the fantasy of the moon

Palm trees that decorate the streets
make for a visual heaven

Some days I like to be the wild vixen I've become
Some days I'll wear my innocence to stay sane,
to be good like how I used to
Life's too short to pick just one way to be
and I wonder if people truly find home,
If they're lying about the peace they've found.

I've travelled across oceans and walked down different city streets
and still cannot find the current that takes me to a place I belong.
That doesn't really matter though
when you get to live a thousand lives before your death
and say yes to everything that comes to you
Cause I'm living in a multitude of worlds and I'm the starring role
in each show
Destined for something so much more

I've found great pleasure in the kindness of strangers
and days spent drinking on beaches til dark
with the moon high,
an electric spark to the blue design
and the company of men who treat me divine.

Laughing and playing
and kissing away time
Tongues speaking a foreign language
So good that I don't have to try to comprehend the
mundane talk of the crowd.

I know I've been set free
I know I'm still unsure
of who to be
but this is so much more than dreams coming true.
This is a promise that the extraordinary lure of life will never falter in its beauty, no matter the style we go about discovering it.

Lips burned,
I turn away from the sun.