Sand In My Teeth

I spent months floating around in the ocean confused and conflicted, sometimes letting the current take me, sometimes trying to swim my way halfheartedly through choppy waters to the shore. I finally realized that despite it's sweet allure, I had no choice but to make my way back to land and leave the ocean behind me. It's waters were too turbulent and too many times I'd found myself trapped under the waves, lungs full of water, desperately pushing towards the surface for air. So I struggled against the current, even as I craved it's pull, needed it, wanted it, knew I'd feel lost, shaky, disoriented on my feet, like the earth was still swaying under me once I hit land. I struggled against the current and swam toward the shore, push and pull. The waves propelling me toward my destination one minute and then sweeping me back into the sea's embrace the next. I struggled against the current, inside and out. I still swam with half a heart, even less of a heart than my first feeble attempt to shore months before, but somehow with more determination. Everytime I felt the saltwater scratch my lungs, it made up for my lack of heart. The salt that once held me happy and buoyant in the water was now tearing up my insides, swelling through my pores. And my sense of self preservation kicked in, overriding what little heart I had left, telling it that it would meet it's missing pieces washed up on the shore, and I'd sit down and try to piece it back together the best that I could. I struggled against the current, my lungs shouting "swim", my half heart whispering "take me".

I struggled against the current, and finally hit the shore; bruised from the rocks, dizzy, disoriented, choking on lungfulls of water and sand, gulping the air, feeling around for the missing pieces in the sand. My eyes facing forward, my half heart facing back, I felt for the missing pieces lost in the sand. The solid earth less solid than when I left it. Full of ocean wet water, sucking at me with every step, rocking under my feet, I looked for the missing pieces with my eyes facing forward and my half heart facing back.

The not so solid earth rocked under my feet and my body missed the soft sway of the sea. I dug through wet fistfulls of sand, full of the ocean that my eyes determinedly avoided and my half heart refused to lose sight of. I pushed through the ocean soaked sand, finding the first pieces. Fumbling and clumsy, trying to remember how they fit. And as I pushed and fumbled the slippery pieces, starting to re-learn their delicate grooves, the tide snuck up on me. The damp earth was becoming the ocean floor and a too familiar feeling of mixed pleasure and panic crept over me. My still fragmented heart whispering "take me", my lungs readied themselves for the sumbersion as the first wave crashed and pulled. My fragmented heart whispered but my eyes stayed forward and my hands held on, searching for a grip in the slippery wet sand. The ocean pushed and pulled, but my lungs, still burning from old salt filled wounds, would be damned if they let themselves get sucked back under. My heart whispered, but my lungs fought and my hands held on through the pounding waves, crashing onto the shore with angry sadness. My lungs fought and the waves pulled but my arms pulled back. Back up to the shore. Back to the missing pieces, pushed further away by the waves, but now out of reach from the tide. My heart still whispers, but my hands dig through the sand, fumbling and finding and fitting back together slippery ocean wet pieces.