I am tired of marveling at the ocean while my feet remain in clean sand, tired of calling the horizon beautiful while my pulse stays steady and untouched, as if distance could ever be enough. What is devotion if my lungs never taste the weight of salt, if my ribs are never pried open by something vast, relentless, insistent, something that presses against me, drags at me, pulls me into itself without care for my readiness?
I have stood at the edge long enough, letting the waves skim my ankles, my calves, retreating as if I were fragile. But I am not fragile. I want more. I want to feel it all. I want to be undone.
Let it take me past the shelf where the ground forgets its promise. Let the water cling to my skin, cold and alive, sliding along every curve, curling into every hollow, tracing the edges I have hidden, the edges I sharpened to survive. I want the pull— the undertow that does not ask, that tugs and twists and presses, that bends me until I cannot tell where I end and where it begins. I want to swallow brine and truth, to taste salt on my lips, to feel the sharp edges of me blur against stone older than my fear, against currents older than my understanding, against a force that will claim me at the slightest falter of my conscience.
I want it everywhere— pressing against my chest, along my spine, wrapping around my legs, sliding along the hollow of my neck, curling along the small spaces where I thought I was safe. I want the ache of it, the hunger of it, the delicious weight of its insistence. I want my breath caught, my pulse pounding, my body alive to every inch of touch, every pressure, every tug. I want it to press me open and hold me there, leave traces of itself, let the cold slide against me like heat, leaving me raw, trembling, and wanting more.
If it tests me, let it be honest. Let it drag me under, press me to the point of breathlessness, leave salt in my wounds, in my mouth, in my lungs, so I know I was here, so I know I gave myself fully, so I know I let myself be taken, claimed, consumed. Because awe that never seizes you, that never presses close enough to make your body ache, is only admiration. Only distance. Only longing without surrender.
I am done standing safely on the shore. I want to step forward and let it close over me, let it coil and drag and press until I am undone, reshaped, gasping with the rush of it, feeling the truth of brine slide deep inside me, making me ache in every nerve at once. I want to disappear in it, to surrender fully, to feel it everywhere, to let it move through me, over me, against me, until all I know is that I am alive and consumed, trembling and craving it again.
I do not want the shore anymore. I want the edge where breath falters, where every nerve is awake, where every inch of me is pressed, pulled, and claimed, where the tide consumes me wholly, dragging me into itself until I am undone, reshaped, and swallowed, where awe becomes obsession, obsession becomes surrender, and surrender becomes everything I have ever wanted.