Salt in the air
Grit on my legs
Smoke in my lungs

578 days on and my only memories of you have been swallowed by the lapping tongue of the sea, have I ever seen you somewhere other than the edge of an unforgiving ocean? Did we spend all of our formative years splashing and smiling? Did we only spend so much time on the water because you or I or both of us loved it?

If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can see you elsewhere. At the end of a carpeted hallway, doubled over in a laugh shaking the walls. Drunk in the back of a car, wrestling with a seat belt. Perched on the top of a structure we used as a degenerate hangout, adjusting your camera. But still, the vision of you on a beach or cliff are the ones that sit on top of my portraits and stills in my mind.  

I find myself by the sea on your birthday, the second one you haven’t seen. Do we celebrate without you? Do we celebrate for you? I pick up sand in my fingers and whisper secrets meant for you and let them slip back through the cracks, the gossip filled grains meet the earth and I hope they scatter to you. I can only see your face by the water, I hear your laugh in the waves, and I wonder if you live in every swell and crash. Where do you live for other people?

When it is my time to go, will I be returned to the sea the same as you,
and will you meet me there?