I need water and light the way you need magic. The love affair I have with the sea.

there is the moon (I told you it was beautiful)
there is the reflection of it in the street,
there is the rain on your face, and once again I recognize that
I lived, and some days I am proud of that accomplishment.

I need magic, too.
I am impressed by the shoe choices spanning the crowd.
I reign in my mind, focus on counting them, the colors, the formats of footwear, the stones inlaid in them.

I can feel myself watching the patterns, the one-two step to her one-two-three,
The skipping, bouncing, shrinking of all these people. Her face pops into your mind, with her small child. No shoes, but a hell of a lot more intention.

I want to take mine (shoes, not people. distinction.) and hurl them into the water, watch them float a little before sinking, look across at the stranger in the red hat and grin because then at least they will know that I know I'm a little mad.

I don't. I'm mildly disappointed in myself that I don't. It is not a thing people do.

What I do, is remember the feeling. The leaving, the running, the descent into anonymity.

The first breath in a place you don't speak a language, the strangeness of your body not belonging with the other bodies, the possibility and uncertainty and newness of that. The thickness in your lungs.

I've made promises. Sometimes, I revel in what it may mean to just wear a raincoat when it is raining. To stop feeling every sensation as a reminder that the beauty is pervasive, and it is not yours to have but to borrow, and there is work to be done.