The ocean knows what we bury.
It has swallowed countless names,
letters, photographs, broken promises,
and things nobody could explain.
Every wave returns quietly,
carrying pieces of somewhere else.
A shell from another shore.
A bottle without its message.
A piece of wood without history.
I wonder what it remembers.
Perhaps every goodbye ever spoken
still lives beneath its surface.
Perhaps every tear we cried
eventually found its way there.
And perhaps that is why
the ocean sounds like mourning.
It never truly forgets.
It only learns how
to make memories sound beautiful.
I stood beside it once,
holding something I couldn’t keep.
The tide came closer.
I let it go.
The ocean took it gently.
Then returned something stranger.
Silence.
And I finally understood:
Some things are not meant
to be carried home.
August 2026
