when you decide it’s okay to be alone

when you decide it’s okay to be alone is when all hell breaks loose.

you stop sitting and staring at the water like it’s a mirage. you stand up, take off your clothes and jump in oblivious to the temperature and every unseen thing lurking beneath.

you float on your back, close your eyes and stop believing you’ll never be held cause in that moment the earth in her grace has chosen to hold you up if only to prove you haven’t seen all there is to see when you open your eyes.

i haven’t even made it to the beach yet. i’m wearing so many layers that it’s hard to move and impossible to justify the exertion of hope. it doesn’t yet feel okay to be alone. it still hurts. every day feels like a false sacrifice to time and every tear burns a hole in the floor, a hole that allows the scent of the dead to wrap its tentacles around my legs.

i am leaden, atrophied by a pain so familiar that the mummy looking back in the mirror can do little more than laugh about how little treasure there will be in my burial.