Coming to the End

The harbor I loved always smelled of decaying fish & freedom. And now, coming to the end of things it’s clear that sometimes we get shown early on, how to live — then spend years plotting charts, scanning depths, sailing away from it. How else do I explain sensing my own skin for the first time, not by touching it or having it touched, but by feeling its weight pressing on what’s been pulsing underneath for so long — and so soon after holding your fragile hand as you escaped the hook & glided out of sight with barely a ripple on the surface to show us where you’d gone.