Salt on My Skin, Sun in My Veins

The city had left a cold residue on me—deadline pressure, fluorescent light, the hum of an office that never slept. So I drove until the asphalt cracked and dissolved into sand, and let the sea swallow my name. Now I kneel where the foam laps at my thighs, the black bikini straps biting softly into skin that still remembers every stress-spasm. The sun presses its warm palm across my shoulder blades, a slow, golden hand massaging the knots out of me, and I feel my body temperature rise like a fever breaking.
I tilt my head back and let the salt air kiss the inside of my nostrils—sharp, clean, alive—while a stray curl sticks to my wet cheek. The rocks behind me are rough and ancient under one hand; the other lifts through my hair, anchoring me in this single breath. A text buzzes against my leg: 'Where are you?' I do not answer. Not yet. Here, with the tide dragging its cold fingers over my ankles and the sun baking a low heat into my core, I am finally, dangerously present. The ocean does not ask what I have become; it only asks that I feel it—every ripple, every warmth—until my heart remembers how to beat for itself.

Editor: Pulse