Beneath a sky bruised with sunset fire,
where waves whisper secrets to the shore,
she appeared…
a silhouette born of moonlight and dream,
a goddess cut from the fabric of forever.
Her bare feet pressed into the waiting sand,
hips swaying to some rhythm the sea itself composed.
Every movement,
a hymn to the stars,
a promise to the wind,
a lure for my hungry soul.
I stood still,
heart clenched tight as a fist,
watching the tide curl around her ankles
like jealous hands unwilling to let her go.
Her laughter,
salt and honey,
carried across the warm night air,
slipping into me like rum on the tongue,
like fire through dry kindling.
She beckoned,
not with her hand,
but with the impossible poetry of her body.
Each turn of her waist wrote verses across the horizon,
each rise and fall of her breath
a stanza swelling with dangerous delight.
Closer I stepped,
the sand giving way as if yielding to fate.
Her eyes,
oh, those eyes,
lit like lanterns in a storm,
saw straight through the armor of my years,
straight to the boy who still believed in forever.
When at last I reached her,
she pressed into me like a secret whispered too close.
The ocean applauded with every breaking wave
as our bodies found the same rhythm,
slow at first,
like embers learning to burn,
then hotter,
closer,
a fire demanding its feast.
Her lips tasted of paradise,
mango heat, saltwater sweetness,
a bite that left me ruined and reborn.
The world fell away,
leaving only her breath on my skin,
her laughter tangled with mine,
and the sinless sin of love unchained.
We danced there until the moon climbed high,
until the sand held our footprints
like scripture carved into holy ground.
She was not just a woman,
she was the storm and the calm,
the temple and the prayer,
the love I had crossed lifetimes to find.
And in that fevered night,
as stars dripped their silver blessings,
I knew:
paradise was not the island,
not the ocean,
not the fire in the sky,
paradise was her,
moving against me,
dancing in the sand,
burning me alive,
and me grateful to be the ash.
