The tide pulls back from the shore,
as if ashamed to leave its mark—
the wet sand clings to footprints,
then surrenders them to the sea.
It whispers the secret of forgetting,
of erasing every step,
as though time were not a thief
but a lover who has left without a trace.

I have stood where the waves were kind,
pressed my fingers to the salt-kissed wind
and let it promise me nothing—
no return, no trace of what was
before the sun swallowed the horizon
and my heart was a question mark,
tugged between its rise and fall.

The ocean is always beginning,
always starting again from nothing,
and in its endless breath,
I found myself learning to let go—
to watch the sky turn purple and soft
without holding it in my chest.
To love without the weight of remembering,
without the cruel hope of staying.

But even here, in the stretch of open sea,
where the horizon hides its truth,
the shore never truly forgets—
and somewhere in the depths,
the footprints wait,
quietly,
for the tide to return.