Sea Walk

I walk down to the beach. The smell of seaweed and shore fills my nose; dead and drying man-o-wars spread their purple sails over the sand.

You are gone.

The darkest dream I remember happened when I slept after arguing with him; wooly caterpillars crept up my throat and had to be pulled out of my mouth. Each one was a cruel word. They scraped my tongue as they escaped; I kept grasping them and lifting them, squirming, into the air, trapped in my fingers, but more kept climbing from my stomach, or my heart, I don’t know which.

There’s a word I didn’t speak that night; the one that stayed curled up in the center of my chest while I fumbled in my dreams. The seagulls turning in the air scream it to the gray sky; the waves mutter it as they gnaw the shore.

My body remembers what my mind forgets.

Is there a way to take back our dreams? I’d speak the last word if I could, but the air between my lips and your ears is infinite. Nothingness is the last whisper you heard.

If I broke the seagull’s neck, she would carry my voice to you, but they all wheel far above me, crying to the indifferent wind.

The word fills my chest like cotton, brushes against my ribs, tickles my throat. I open my mouth and it flies out; the caterpillar given wings, swept into the air, lost.

Are you there?