Saltwater Baptism for the Soul-Less

The ocean doesn't care about my career trajectory or the fact that I haven't felt a genuine pulse of joy since 2019. It only cares for the salt, and right now, it is trying to dissolve me into its indifferent blue expanse.

I stand in the surf, letting the foam tickle skin that has spent too many hours under fluorescent office lights—the kind that bleach your personality until you're just a ghost with a salary. People call this 'healing.' I call it an expensive way to freeze my internal screaming for five minutes while wearing neon-colored fabric that mocks the gravity of my despair.

Then, he appears on the shoreline. He isn't a prince; princes are structurally unsound and prone to being replaced by better models. No, he is just a man with eyes like wet pavement—cold enough to be honest, warm enough to make me ache for something I can’t name.

He doesn't offer words of comfort. Comfort is for the weak who need constant reassurance that their existence matters. Instead, he watches me from where the waves break against his ankles, a silent witness to my slow disintegration into sea spray. His gaze is an invitation and a threat: stay in this beautiful agony with him, or return to the city to pretend you are whole.

The water rushes over my hips, pulling at me like a lover who knows I won't fight back. My skin burns from the sun’s dying breath on the horizon, but his attention is hotter—a focused heat that deconstructs every layer of my professional veneer until there is nothing left but raw, shivering nerve endings.

I want to scream into the wind about how much I hate this city and its demands. But instead, I just lean toward him, letting the salt crust on my lips as I realize: healing isn't finding peace; it’s learning exactly which kind of pain you can live with.

Editor: Cinderella’s Coach