Beach

The first real summer breeze hits your face as you track the coastline.

Windows down, looking for the perfect spot.

Clear blue skies for miles and an endless stretch of ocean calling your name.

Bucket packed with melting ice.
Sodas knocking against each other in the backseat.
Cut fruit. Towels. Sunscreen leaking somewhere.
Everything already a little sandy.
A little sticky.
A little sun-faded.

Perfect.

You run down to the shore to cool off, diving straight in.

Underwater, everything changes.

The noise disappears.
It softens. Into the distance.

You can hear the muffled churn of the tide.
Your own heartbeat.

The strange vastness of it all.

For a second, it feels like floating inside something endless.
Quiet, yet enormous.

Then you break the surface - back to the noise.

You crash onto your sandy towel, skin tingling as the saltwater evaporates in the heat. With a newfound calm.

Sun pressing against your eyelids. Turning the back of your vision into a warm, glowing red. It’s hot. Too hot.

You crack open an ice-cold soda
and every sip tastes slightly like the ocean, saltwater still drying on your lips.

Nowhere else you need to be.

Just the heat. The waves.

And the feeling that summer, for once,
is exactly where you are.