this is my gift to you, who loves the ocean more than breath.

this is my gift to you, who loves the ocean more than breath.

for you, i will let myself dissolve. it feels like forgiveness folded into a tide: a place to set my head and unlace the weight i have carried for too long.

i will not scream, i will not cry; i will quiet myself until the silence becomes an offering, because you asked for honesty and the sea is where i can be honest without words.

pressure pins me like a storm pressing the sky to the earth, a roar in my skull, a stone inside my ribs, and still i welcome the ache, because it means something is breaking open.

soon the tide will come for me. it will reach with patient, inevitable hands, lift me from the stubborn shore, and guide me into its cold, careful bed. it will pull me under, but not to kill me- no, it wants me awake as i give in. it will teach me the language of surrender.

when the chill roots through my bones and strips me of my small defences, the ocean will keep me. it will hold me in the same arms you loved, turning my fracture into a shape that fits the sea. i go under willingly, because giving myself to water is the only way i can give myself to you.

this is my gift to you- my unmooring, my letting go. take it as proof that i trusted the thing you love most to carry me whole. i am going under, and at last i am certain the sea will not let me go; not until i am salt, not until i am gone, not until i belong to it entirely.