Salt on the Skin, Silence in the Soul

The sun is a heavy weight upon my shoulders, pressing the salt of the sea into every pore. I stand where the water meets the sand—a borderland between what is real and what is dreamed.
His name is a stone I keep in my pocket; smooth from constant handling, yet always cold against my palm. He does not see me here. He sees only the horizon, or perhaps he sees the ghost of someone else reflected in the turquoise waves.
The wind catches my hair, pulling at my scalp like a desperate hand trying to hold onto a fading memory. I smile because it is easier than weeping into the spray. My skin is wet with brine and heat, a physical manifestation of all the words I have swallowed to keep our silence intact.
In this light, everything is luminous yet fleeting. Like the cicada's song that rises before the final molt, my love for him is a beautiful vibration in the air—present, piercing, and destined to vanish into the afternoon haze. I am healing not from his absence, but from the way he remains present even when he is miles away.
I close my eyes and let the tide wash over me. For a moment, there is no city noise, no expectations, only the rhythmic pulse of the ocean and the bitter sweetness of being loved by someone who does not know I exist.

Editor: Summer Cicada