Coney Island

Selina Lau

“I’m sitting on a bench in Coney Island wondering ‘where did my baby go?’” – Taylor Swift

My shoes are soaked, the salt slowly yet dutifully wrecking the foundations of the sole while my heartache is fervently degenerating the quality of this life without you. Sand is stuck to the hems of my pants, the ones you told me to get altered so they wouldn’t be dragging on the floor everywhere I go, collecting unwanted souvenirs from my trips around the city. I’ve never been one for change, but I’d switch the nostalgia, reminiscence and romanticisation of what we had to the bygone reality of you by my side in a heartbeat. Even if my heart is wrecked in the process, I’d rather it be you that’s administering my pain, ‘cause oh god I can’t handle this absent ghost of you.  

Here I am with a camera in my hands instead of you. I snap pictures and take videos of what could’ve been your fondest memories with me as your centerfold. No matter where I go I am reminded of you and of us, you’ve been the moonlight of my life for so long. I can’t remember who I am if I’m not basking in your incandescent glory. The rides at Luna Park we talked about going on together, the delis that line up the streets under the train tracks, and the people enjoying their day on the boardwalk with their best friends are just the surface of the burn. The flickering, malevolent burn that never ceases to wound me as I indulge in my recollection of you, a past time that is resulting in the hamartia of my happiness. How devastatingly Shakespearean. 

We met each other as the same person, bound by comfortable familiarity, with flaws so mirrored that it seemed like fate. The rarity of it, yet the familiarity seemed not like infatuation at the time. But by us leaving each other as different people I discern now that in our twisted infatuation we merely scratched the surface of what we thought love was. Yet that doesn’t dull the pain, as my love in any form was not diluted or weakened when concerning you. It always, always, comes back to you. Somehow as I am sitting here, on a bench in Coney Island, I am reminded of you. Maybe it’s the way the slow breeze coming from the sea reminds me of how you tried to teach me what upwelling is or the way the Stillwell stop reminds me of when I had sent you a picture of a pigeon getting on the train with me and you replied with “I sent it there so I could be with you.”

The Taylor Swift blasting through my headphones hurts the most. Songs we once couldn’t relate to are all we listen to now, the transgressions of life are to be expected they say. Yet my life’s metamorphosis is clearly rooted in failure if I can’t evolve to be past you. The certainty of this scares me, but not as much as the indifference. The once “I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at fifteen” has turned into “If I can’t relate to you then who am I related to.”

As the sun went down I realized that the accident had made me the car and you the tree. Naturally you healed while I rust away in the landfill but as you grow there will always be a crack in you from our “accident” because the hardest part about healing is leaving a part of me with you. 

I still don’t understand how it happened. If it was me who left you behind or the other way around. I can’t tell how I feel about the absence of YOU while I live out the future WE dreamed of, or rather the future I thought we dreamed of. As I said, we merely scratched the surface of intimacy, molding ourselves to fit the other is cruelty at its finest, as we can never mold ourselves back. Back to how we were. Back to who we were. 

I can’t tell why the thought of Coney Island reminds me of you, afterall we have never been here together, and I can’t tell why I specifically chose the beach to be your emblem. Perhaps the waves that are crashing against the shore is nature mirroring  how we clash, the push and pull of the waves, taking away old parts of the shore and washing up new ones. The certainty of that would soothe me in another life, if the earth acts how we act, surely we are destined to be together. Surely it’s fated. Yet now, it only imbues me with a deeper depth of despair, if that was the love I was fated for, why is its destructiveness masqueraded as a partnership, as something to ascertain. Surely, that can’t be the love I deserve. Or maybe it’s the estuary of the water that reminds me the most of us. Saltwater and freshwater meeting but never quite mixing. Two composed of the same base, only difference being the salt, the only difference between you and me is that you never tried. Your lack of dedication is like salt in my wounds, stinging with past memories, burning with rage and never letting me heal. 

Now as I am sitting here on a bench in Coney Island wondering where did you go, I remember how far I’ve come without you. How I am accomplishing everything that used to be mere dreams with you. How there is no use in staying stuck in the past with no end in sight because you have moved on way before I ever will. The best part about life is meeting your twin flame, the feeling of relating to every single part of a person. But every time I meet someone in Coney Island, I am reminded of how I don’t want someone new because I want you. Oh, how I yearn for you.

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Raised in NYC, Selina pulls inspiration from her adventures around the city and relates them back to her personal life. Looking around at her surroundings, she cherishes living in the moment. Besides creative writing, she also enjoys other creative forms including as songwriting and drawing.