Sad and beautiful.

Love this poem on the whole. Beautiful character study by any standard. Love the way you tackle the different stages of her development. Of course, I had to go look up Encinitas to find out where the hell it was. Cameron's from California, or is that just in your head? *hasn't seen an ep of House in a long time*

"A conch shell she found out among the breakers
Pearly and hard
Like the curled fist of the sea."

You need to become a poet. A published poet. Like, yesterday.

Couple things, though. I'm not sure they call it a switchknife, I personally have always known it as switchblade. Could be wrong, though. "Warriness" should be "wariness". "Inscrutible" should be "inscrutable". I'm a spelling Nazi. >.<

PS: "sweet summer sweat" - Eagles reference?