Salt on My Lips

The sea foam blankets my feet. It warms me in the cold morning light. The waves arc and crash becoming crystalline as they peak. The sound echoes in my head days after leaving like a benevolent earworm content to live inside the soft conch shell of my ear. There's a specific kind of sandy itchiness in my hair after I swim. I can feel the grit of the ocean creating its own beach waves on my head. The clouds hang low and close to the water, preparing for a textured sunset in the evening.

There's an eroticism to the sand. To something inching its way into every nook, cranny, and crevice. A warm sweatshirt after swimming and the softness of fleece against my cold nipples. The water licks my body voraciously like a reader tearing through a romance novel.

Naps here feel like time stands still. Like I could sleep and no one would wake me except the water, centuries later finally lapping at my toes after millions of ice caps melted. This place can't be here forever. Maybe, like so many of my favorite parts of California, that is what makes it special, its impermanence, the inevitability of its demise. The ocean will probably overtake this small beach house one day. Sand might cover the places where we'd paint our nails, careful not to spill a drop of paint lest another family member be upset. The saltwater will choke out the spiral succulents my grandma planted years ago. Maybe one day soon the salt on my lips will feel dangerous and ominous rather than like a savory summer delicacy.