Salt

emotional turmoil strikes like waves, coiling, spiralling. crisp salt air tastes of freedom or pleasure, or blood and bones. seaglass and shellfish.

yesterday the aquamarine was clear. oysters and abalone bend the horizon into blissful blues. a little powder on your cheeks, a little flirt from the sun, a little grain beneath the arch of your foot, and things feel a little better. you think that it’s all over, that the rivulets that once descended your throbbing lips and crinkled eyes had evaporated in the coastal light. you see the horizon, and feel the string wound around your aorta. tug, tug, then tug again, because you know the fleets, the fleets of white and crimson ships beyond that horizon are coming to take you home.

but the violets and maroons strike in the night. the ships never come and your naked body is nipped by the bite or the kiss of the seafoam. seaweeds wrap around your waist, dragging you into deceitful grains. the pain metastasises through pruned hands, through your paper-scrunched feet. the waves strike onto you again, a natural waterboard, brought about by you and you alone, because sand isn’t sticky and seaweed isn’t strong. but you stay, a permanent fixture, a new landmark amongst the coast. they will have to redraw the maps and to realign the stars above in the night, for you don’t know how long you may linger. for you don’t know how long this feeling will be, and if it’s forever, at least you got to feel the salt flush through your veins.