Salt & Scars

The sand still smelled of him. Not the sharp tang of rain, or cheap cologne – just… salt and something else. Something like old wood and quiet mornings.

I’d been building castles here for weeks, trying to forget the way his hands felt on my skin, the rumble of his laugh against my ear. Each grain a tiny shard of what I'd lost. Each wave a cold reminder.

The wind whipped my hair across my face, tasting like freedom and regret. He wasn’t here to chase it away.

Then he appeared – just at the edge of the driftwood, silhouette against that bruised sunset. Didn’t say anything. Just watched me, the way you watch someone wrestling with ghosts.
He didn't offer a solution. No grand gestures or promises. Just… offered his shadow, shielding me from the last sliver of light.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. There was something in his stillness that felt like an anchor, pulling me back to the shore, not with force, but with a gentle insistence.
It wasn't a rescue. It wasn’t even a beginning. Just…a shared breath against the vastness of it all. A warmth spreading through my chilled bones, slow and stubbornly real.

Maybe healing isn’t about erasing the scars. Maybe it's just learning to carry them in the salt air.

Editor: Street-side Poet