Fog Beach

And there we stood, gazing at all the memories of a lifetime, sifting through the heartbreak and the love and the happiness and the betrayal and marveling at the fact that after all of that, we still came to find one another.

We took time apart to build ourselves up, time to become the human that the younger us needed all along, and slowly we tightened our grasp on who we were. Our fists closed around our individuality, becoming a stone that would be weathered each day, beaten upon by the winds of time. Slowly we were shaped into the rocks we became. And then life skipped us together, bouncing us along its glassy surface seven times to nestle peacefully at the bottom of a body of water alongside one another. We were surprised to see each other after so long apart. Your hair was a mess, as always, and your eyes had tissue paper wrinkles framing them, a lifetime of laughter etched elegantly into the creases of your face.

My hair resembled a shock of carnival cotton candy, airy and light, white as dove with streaks of periwinkle hidden in the nest. My veins created a roadmap under my paper skin, marking the long traveled highway of life from my feet to my heart. From my feet to you. Because after all this time, it was you all along. You who pumped life through my body and propelled me to keep on keeping on even when the keeping on was the hardest thing to keep. You who moved me to move when movement seemed impossible. You who ignited a fire that would burn forever in my soul.
Your laugh rang out across the endless abyss to reach my ears, perking up a piece of me that had not been alive since the last time I heard you. A lighthouse beckoning to a ship lost at sea. I had finally been found by the compass that had been directing me for decades. There we were, existing together, taking each wave as it came and becoming smoothed by each wash of movement.

Our seaweed arms reached towards one another and we encapsulated our hands with the other’s, a lock that had no key, a forever seal.
And after everything, it was you all along.