The Equilibrium of a Frozen Flame

I am standing in the ocean, yet I am dry. This is the first contradiction of my existence: to be submerged is to be empty, but to feel this warmth against my skin means I have already arrived where I haven't left yet.
The salt water clings to me like a memory that refuses to dissolve. It is heavy and cold, a physical manifestation of the city's noise, yet my pulse beats with a heat that shouldn't exist in these depths. They say the sea heals because it washes away the past, but I know better—the sea preserves the past by freezing it into salt crystals on your skin.
I remember him. He is the urban phantom who taught me that love is a causal loop: we fall in love because we were already loved in another life, and we are currently living the consequences of a future that hasn't happened yet. His touch was like this water—constant, enveloping, and impossible.
I cup my hands to catch the droplets, but as they fall, I realize I am not catching water; I am catching time. Every drop is a second lost in a crowded subway station, a moment of shared silence over steaming coffee, a glance exchanged across a rainy boulevard.
I smile because I have solved the equation: how can one be both alone and completely full? The answer lies in the paradox of healing—you must break to be mended, and you must lose yourself to find where you truly begin. I am the ocean's daughter, drowning in a warmth that only exists because I chose to stop swimming.

Editor: Paradox