Sea

Sea

The sea doesn’t care about your arrival

or your departure. It doesn't weep

when you dip your feet,

and it doesn’t cheer when you leave.

It swallows every footprint,

washes them away in seconds,

as if you were never here at all.

But you were. You felt it,

the pull of something ancient,

something timeless,

gripping you like a hand you can’t escape.

The sea doesn’t ask why you come,

why you stand on the shore

gazing out at something you’ll never possess,

but it knows.

It knows the way you look at the horizon

and taste the salt in the air

like it’s a memory you never lived,

a longing carved into your bones

before you were born.

The sea knows the shape of your loneliness

and the silence that follows you

even when you're not alone.

You think you understand it,

that you can capture it in a poem

or a painting or a song,

but the sea laughs quietly to itself

beneath the rhythm of the waves.

It has no need to be understood.

It doesn’t need you to make sense of it,

for in the way the tide moves,

and the storm breaks,

and the waves crash,

it is already more real than any word

you will ever speak.

It is the deepest sorrow,

the heaviest joy,

all tangled together

in every ripple,

and it is neither enough nor too much.

It just is.

And it will swallow you whole

when you forget how small you are,

when you forget to let go

and simply be.

The sea doesn't need your meaning,

your longing,

your desperation.

It simply exists,

to remind you

that there is a vastness in you,

and sometimes,

you are both

the one who wanders

and the one who drowns.

Author's Note

I know it's a bit of a long poem, but if you take the time to read it, it would mean a lot to me :)

Reviews

[Green]

It may indeed be on the longer side but it has an ease to it that makes its length unnoticeable to the reader. Because the statement is too fitting to ignore, it flows so to speak.
I loved how this made the ocean feel both sentient and somehow above sentience at the same time. That contradiction in my own mind was interesting to hold while reading.

[M 💕]

Thank you so much for this thoughtful feedback, it means a lot to me! I’m really happy to hear it flowed easily for you despite the length. And I love how you put it: the sea feeling both sentient and above sentience. That’s exactly the strange, contradictory feeling I was chasing when I wrote this. It makes me glad it came through for you. Thanks again for reading and for leaving such a lovely comment!