White Sands & Smiles Littered like Beer Cans

Nicholas Viglietti

Gulf dripping sweat blew heavy humidity off the Mississippi coastline...my eyes were shaded by

dark as midnight shields of glass. There's a hurricane...out there...brewing in the distance. Spray

fresh streaks of sun protection, crack tops on Landshark hops, and the crooked chill in my grin

matches the vibrancy of Biloxi’s gambling glory – where everybody cures their sorrow in the

sand. It stretches into east & west oblivion...stay strong & never trip, because every day alive and

the decisions we make, push us closer in this heart-beating existence, to the nearest exit. My

fingers tips are calloused, tough and perpetually fit for a joint grip...21 was raw on my adolescent

heart...out, over the grimy, flapping waters, past the hurricane, still a few decades off, taking its

time, was a point of life’s mystical lines...not every worry requires urgent attention...don’t ruin

your present with a future that is more manufactured mind than reality. I wanted to keep the far-

side of the future as far off as possible...lounging in the rhapsody of this white sand beach;

running past the city limit edge of Biloxi’s visibility...it was as if I knew...the years ahead

wouldn’t get better than the reclined lawn chairs, coolers adjacent that doubled as a trash-bins,

and more hours than our livers could drink, burning tan-lines into our skin...It felt good...those

wasted hours; hurling a cast net and soaking up the sun with special smiles, stuck in the East

Biloxi living-grind...hustlin’ hard and just barely makin’ the progressive cuts...we lose beautiful

souls...flames that burn for brief moments in the transitions of our years. I knew I didn’t have the

trench livin’ grit, or any promise of a direction – aside from the end of the day – past the

encroaching hurricane was nothing...but mystery...and I didn’t know how to handle the

future...but going through is all you can do...find some definition...some survival, and exist

through the ramble – stay tough like a cockroach, kind of creature.

Nicholas Viglietti is a writer from Sacramento, CA. He started writing in high school. After which, he served in the Americorps – two years rebuilding houses on the gulf coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and one year working on a trail crew in the Montana/Idaho wilderness. He graduated from Humboldt State University. Now, he works for the cheap and attempts to get words published under his name. Nicholas is a Hawaiian-shirt aficionado, a pina-colada connoisseur, and enjoys hot, lazy days by the pool with his wifey.