Saltwater Vespers: The Taste of a Lingering Ghost

The humidity here is thick enough to swallow my breath, heavy with the scent of brine and old secrets. I stand where the shoreline meets the city's memory, letting the ocean wash over me like a baptism for my weary skin.
Each drop that escapes my lips is a syllable of a poem I never dared to speak aloud. It tastes of salt—the sharp, clean sting of things lost and found in equal measure. The water isn't just cooling my throat; it’s rinsing away the soot of the neon-lit nights, the lingering smoke of cigarette clouds in rain-slicked alleys, and the way your name still pulses under my ribs like a low-frequency hum.
I close my eyes, letting the spray mist my lashes. In this blur between sea and sky, I find a quiet healing. It’s not about moving on; it’s about learning to breathe in the wet air of 'after.' The tide pulls at my heels, dragging memories toward the horizon, but here, in the curve of my hands and the trickle of water down my chest, there is only now. A damp, shimmering present where your ghost feels less like a haunt and more like a warm current beneath my skin.

Editor: Midnight Neon