riptide

i had a girl once. pretty, with cinnamon eyes and freckles, hair that flew sleek like gull’s feathers in the wind. we walked hand-in-hand along the seashore and talked about getting married, buying a house on the ocean and swimming in the waves, raising a family here and taking pictures of tiny footprints in the sand.

she always did love the sea. it called to her, whispering of hidden cities and lost treasures, clamshells and silvery fish scales whirling into schools, sparkling like diamonds. she’d pick through the driftwood after summer storms, searching for seaweed and shark eggs.

there was a far-off look in her eyes that day, the day she told me i couldn’t give the world to her even though i’d always promised it. diamonds weren’t enough for her; she wanted pearls and rubies and gemstones only to be found in the deepest, darkest trenches of the world’s oceans. she wanted to swim, to be one of the fishes.

she never said goodbye. she merely smiled sadly at me and ran into the waves, diving beneath the crest and flying out of sight. i should have wrapped kelp around her waist like sea otters do their pups, to anchor her. but she was wild and full of unbridled wanderlust, dreaming of the big blue and all it could offer her. the sirens called to her from across the sea, their voices wily and dripping with impossible promises, and she was too enraptured to resist, disappearing beneath the foam. i called her name, but she never looked back.