In the dark the sand sparkles like stars, scooped from an earthen sky and released from my tightened fist into a galaxy patterned on a dark damp rock masquerading as the universe. In the dark the saltwater stings a cold dance against my skin, baptism by sea, clarity via the elements. The sea is my giant crystal ball, it helps me see everything and what it misses I can find in those stars as I touch them and let them go. The sound rushes in to fill my head, muting everything else until the focus that remains is distilled down to the purest form.
Sea, myself & sky.
It's a game I've been playing inside my head forever, a play upon learning grammar in elementary school. Me, myself and I. Subjects. Objects. Pronouns. Intensifiers. I look up sharply at the teacher. Intensifiers? I've got intensifiers. My half-formed little eight-year-old brain smiles as she thinks of her boys and returns to her daydream in which it's not even day, it's night and it's not even in town, it's at the beach, and it doesn't even matter because the sea will still be here waiting for you even if your brain is full and your mind is harried and your grammar is wrong and your dress is still too big, Bridget. She's there and she keeps the stars on full reflect and she will drown all your fears and she will show you a different way to predict your future if only you let her surround you. Lean your head back, spread your arms out wide and tread the sea like the longest journey you can imagine and at the end, there you are.
