ours

Home seeped with nostalgia-- an eerie stickiness,
but colder now than it ever was before.
It never did feel like mine, but I know now
it’s not anymore.
 
This time I stood alone on that high rock’s ledge,
the one we leapt from last January’s dawn.
With you, I fell into that frozen baptism, now
we’re both gone.
 
The mass I look down upon is still churning,
this time in shades of navy instead of gold.
It felt warmer then, though the water had been
bitter cold.
 
The sea splashes in 21 screams against the rock I stand,
like a warning bell, a nightmare, a memory.
I left this place of skeletons, forever fighting
to be free.
 
Gray coastal mist, like ashes; a death bed
suffocating my lungs with childhood debris and brine.
These beaches keepsake our memories, what’s lost and holy,
our sandy shrine.