I walk alone where waves collapse, 
soft footprints swallowed in the sand. 
The wind still hums in hushed relapse, 
as if it knows, as if it planned. 

The salt still lingers on my skin, 
like ghosts of kisses long set free. 
The echoes of where we had been 
now drift apart, now drown at sea. 

The way she laughed, the way she spun, 
barefoot, reckless, wild, untamed. 
Like sunlight caught and come undone, 
a spark too bright to hold or name. 

The tide moves in, the tide retreats, 
it takes, it gives, it whispers low. 
Yet memories, like broken fleets, 
are lost in places I won’t go. 

And though her face begins to wane, 
like faded footprints on the shore, 
the ocean sings her name in vain— 
but I don’t hear it anymore.