National Poetry Month, Day #16

Return to the Sea

When Life’s a Beach

Costa Rica, Pacific Coast. Watercolor by Author

The sand does not ask where I’ve been.
It only welcomes
with warmth, with hush,
with the patience of something ancient.

I sit beneath the palms,
their shadows soft as lullabies.
The wind moves through my hair
like a memory
I hadn’t known I’d forgotten.

The sea doesn’t speak,
but it understands.
It touches my feet with healing,
wraps my ankles in salted seaweed,
as if to say, “You’re home.”

It pulls sorrow from my bones
the way the tide reclaims shells —
gently,
again and again.

I breathe differently here,
like someone remembering
what the body knew
before the noise began.

Before clocks.
Before expectations.
Before the world asked me
to forget
that I am mostly water.