Sand Echoes

My legs pressed stories

into the shoreline

from staying

longer than I should have.

Evening leaned softly

against the waves,

and I traced the edge

of a half-built sandcastle—

one fragile tower

tilting toward the sea.

I flattened it with my palm.

The emptiness in my chest

rose and fell

like something rehearsing departure.

Seagulls startled upward.

Wind shifted its tone.

Far out past the horizon,

a storm stitched itself

into the sky.

I told myself

I would breathe again

soon—

after the waiting loosened

its grip.

The tide returned with evidence:

splintered shells,

fractured spirals,

things once whole

now surrendered to salt.

I gathered them anyway.

Habit is stronger than hope.

At the waterline

I bent low,

ear to the damp earth,

as if the ground might whisper

your approach.

Nothing.

Only the patient pulse

of waves assembling

and undoing themselves.

I lay back

motionless—

quiet as an ancient creature

pretending not to feel the tide.

Foam touched my feet.

My knees.

My ribs.

Then my face—

a brief, entire second

beneath the world.

Water glazed my skin

with a silver hush,

a language I almost understood.

It pulled away gently,

as if even the ocean

knew when to let go.

Above me,

the sky hung heavy and uncommitted.

Grey folding into grey.

I smiled at it anyway.

Because sometimes

hope is stubborn—

it waits for light

long after the day is done.

When the clouds thinned,

the sun broke through

without apology.

It burned where I was tender.

It lit what had been hidden.

And still—

I had waited.

And waited.

For footsteps

that never reached the sand.

The shells cut into my palm.

Sharp, unfinished things.

I threw them back

one by one,

letting the sea keep

what it had already broken.

The shoreline blurred

into music carried by wind.

California dissolved

into a fading chorus—

a place

that held my patience

longer than it held you.

And the tide,

faithful and indifferent,

kept coming.