Malibu, 1992

Intro

In 1992, Malibu held a kind of light that felt endless. Restoring this old photo opened a doorway back to the woman I was then barefoot, sun warmed, and standing at a shoreline that shaped me. The ocean, the sky, the ease of that day all came rushing back. This poem is a return to that moment, to the version of me the Pacific held, and to the infinity that still lives in the tide.

Malibu, 1992

The ocean was a mirror then,

bright enough to hold every version of me

I hadn’t lived yet.

Bare feet in the sand,

salt threading my hair,

Malibu breathing its warm blue promise

against my skin.

I didn’t know the years would carry me

so far from that shoreline,

but the light in that moment

never left.

In 1992, Malibu opened like a doorway

waves lifting,

sky widening,

the whole coast humming

with the kind of beauty

that doesn’t ask permission to exist.

I stood there barefoot,

held by the tide,

as if the Pacific itself

was teaching me how to shine.

I look back at her

the girl standing in the surf,

sun on her shoulders,

wind in her open shirt.

She didn’t know she was carrying

a whole lifetime of stories

in that one quiet moment.

Malibu did.

The ocean always knows.