It began with footprints… mine, then gone.
Washed away by a tide that seemed to know
how to take what I never meant to give.
The sea, wide-eyed and glistening,
offered no apology, only silence
and the hush of waves pulling secrets
into the folds of its ancient skirt.
I had come here hollow,
salt-stung with a loneliness I couldn’t name,
looking for something I thought I’d never find again:
a smile I used to wear without effort,
a hope I had buried beneath too many goodbyes.
But the beach,
that quiet witness to the coming and going of everything,
knew better than I did.
It placed small miracles at my feet
a shell shaped like a heart,
the warm kiss of wind on my cheek,
laughter from children I’d never met
but who reminded me how joy sounds.
Then, you.
Not like a rescue,
but like a returning.
Like a part of me walking back from the sea,
holding out its hand and saying:
“Here. You forgot this.”
And in your eyes
the soft blue of low tide
I saw it all:
the trust I lost,
the fire I dimmed,
the love I feared I’d never be worthy of again.
So now I know.
The beach doesn’t just take.
It keeps things safe until we are ready
to see,
to feel,
to begin again.
And in its shimmering honesty,
I found everything
I had once believed
was gone.
