The waves come,
slow at first —
a soft hiss against my ankles,
salt threading through the cracks of my skin.
I stand there,
breath shallow,
the tide licking at the edges of my bones.
But it doesn’t stay soft.
The water rises,
crashing hard against my chest,
a cold weight driving into muscle and marrow.
It pulls —
dragging sand from beneath my feet,
stealing fragments of ground
until I’m sinking inch by inch
into the hollow it leaves behind.
I try to stand tall,
shoulders squared against the surge,
but the waves don’t stop.
They break harder,
white foam tearing through breath,
the sharp bite of salt in my throat
burning as I gasp for air.
The undertow pulls.
The current sinks teeth into my calves,
dragging me toward the dark depths,
and I know —
there is no fighting this.
No shore to reach for,
no hand to pull me free.
So I stay.
I let it crash.
Let the salt carve new lines into my skin,
let the water smooth me down
until I’m nothing but raw stone and sea glass
gleaming beneath a broken sky.
I know I am smaller now —
shaped by the ebb and swell,
etched thin by salt and time —
but I am still standing.
Even as the tide returns,
even as the waves rise again,
I remain.