Like the grains of sand, we don’t know when we'll come back again
They arrive at the beach at noon, their cars pull in slowly, like the tide. The air is brisk, stale with salt, it coats the back of her throat when she steps out.
Out in the distance she catches a glimpse of something, a tracing in the sand—small flicker of light and the memories wash up like sea glass.
They’re like a trance that pull her to the shore, shoes abandoned. A summer breeze rushes past her, they’re wading amongst the water, shells glistening between their fingers, sand up to their thighs. They’re laughing.
The cold wind creeping up her spine tells her that. She can make out the clatter from their unpacking and the slight shouting that travels up to her.
“It's too cold for this” Rom’s voice caries the clearest. Behind him, she sees Sylvia and Malum carrying out the mats, they say something back, but she can’t make it out. In front of her thou, there with her by the waves, is Aidan. Again.
“It’s weird, you know.” He turns, looks at me, maybe past me, at some memory of us all holding hands, feet dug into the sediment.
“I told myself that I was alone now, again, and I was ok with that this time. But I rehearsed what I’d say to you, to all of you, when you came back to me.”
In the quiet of my bedroom, the hushed whimpers into the wood on my decking, spirited mornings and golden sunlight, “I’d tell you about my dad and homes that weren’t really homes,” the tide retreats, “and if you think about it wasn’t that me just hoping I would see you guys again?”
Then crashes back in, out and then in again. We sigh in tandem, it breaks something between us. I look over, at home. Not place, just person, people.
I know the smile is weak, but I let myself have that, enjoy what I can and maybe a little more. I cup them in my hands, these moments shining in kaleidoscopic projection.
I cast it out into the curling waves, leave it up to chance.
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