at the edge

There's no other place for me to be, now, at the edge of the encompassed ocean scabbed with rocks. I am utterly surrounded, the concrete wall behind me where the high-tide waves ravish themselves at dawn and dusk; and the lapping, roaring lion surf before me. Never turn your back to the ocean, said my wise and silent-walking father once, as he handed me a perfect sandwich and a pocket knife to eat it with. No; I shall always look directly forward, let the past press into my back and the future twirl in the sunset before my shining face. I shall breathe in only salty sea-spit, box myself in on every side so I may with every elemental moment push my hair into the grey, gullfilled sky and my toes into the damp grit. Up and spine-stretching up I look, and down through to the warm earth, gulping every instant individually and circling it with an ever-changing coastal pictureframe, a blinking lighthouse and a sand dollar and my name scratched in the sand.