The ocean

Love, Chapter one, feels like watching the surf.

At a distance, blue as ever, and reliably patterned.

It churns, yet you want a part.

Chapter two is the first wave that almost kisses your feet.

The escaped feeling of missing the water's touch: both relief and disrupt.

You wish it to return & it does.

Love rushes back.

Chapter three is cold & not unlike warmth, feels natural. 

Tender and strong waves of liquid glass fall upon your feet, endearing you in. 

"Please, give me more than a dip. Give me more than a kiss on the cheek. Give me more than your longing gaze."

Sometimes it crashes upon itself, shortening it's own reach... Does that hinder you?

Does it make you scoff? Does that mean it won't last? 

Chapter four begins with the numbness in your feet, adjustment to the new mode.

And you walk in. And it rushes you.

Can you stand? Do you stand against it? 

Do you accept the wash-over, and swim to give it reason to lift you up?

Do you move onto chapter five?

Do you cherish the salt of love?

When you take a step back so it never envelopes you, have you loved the ocean, or agreed to let it try to love you for a time?

Does your heart move you to taste it? Wash your hair in it?

Heal your hot, tired soles?

So it's strength shows it's weakness... The foam that lifts and caresses the surface. The way it expels it's exhaustion. The work it expends to reach for you.

And you've stepped back?

Has the sound drowned you?

Let it be all you hear.

Birds, worries, money, labor, sadness, will be dealt, 

and heard 

but you still need your ocean to come home to.