Part With it, Start Again

I long for the ocean. I hear it moan for me outside my window every night. I hear its aching cries as it throws itself against the shore, foamy white tendrils reaching for me, closer, closer, until it sighs and retreats back in on itself. I long to leave this little shack of mine and go to it. I want to let it wash over me and take me out with the current, let its cold embrace envelope me, let the tide pull me under. Let go. I want to surrender to it, completely and utterly. I would let it swallow me up with wide open arms, willingly giving myself over to that hungry coldness. I am sick of this delusion of control. I know that I am powerless to it, though it leaves me to my own devices in my little seaside shack. Some men think that they can tame it; they build walls and dams and ships and platforms, all in excess. It could sweep everything away in an instant. But it doesn’t. It’s a taunting, capricious thing. It whispers my name and beckons, the waves curling in a welcoming gesture, drawing forever in on itself. The shores hold me fast with uncertainty, sand like shackles, forced to watch another day drift by.