Golden Hour Ache

The city is a concrete throat, always swallowing us whole with its noise and its neon greed. I needed the silence of the salt air to drown out the hum of the subway and the ghost of your last text message.
I stood where the tide meets the sand, feeling the sun strip away my layers, much like the way you used to look at me in those dimly lit Soho bars—as if you could see right through the silk and the carefully curated poise. The warmth on my shoulder felt like a phantom touch, a beautiful, stinging reminder of what we left behind in that glass-walled apartment.
There is no running from the hunger for connection, even when the pavement feels too hard to bear. As the light turned amber, I realized I wasn't waiting for you to find me; I was waiting to remember how to breathe without the weight of our shared shadows. The ocean doesn't ask questions, and for once, neither do I.

Editor: Desire Line