Sand Between Toes and a Heartbeat in My Throat

My city life was a series of fluorescent lights and cold coffee, an endless loop of deadlines that felt like slow-motion suffocation. Then came Leo—a man with grease under his fingernails from fixing old motorcycles and eyes that looked at me like I was the only thing real in this plastic world.
He didn't say much; he just took my hand one Friday evening and drove us three hours south until the asphalt turned to salt-crusted sand. He told me, 'Forget everything but the wind.'
I walked ahead of him on this stretch of coast today, wearing a bikini that felt like second skin under a sun that finally knew my name. I could feel his gaze trailing behind me—not hungry, not demanding, just... witnessing. It’s an old-school kind of love, the raw sort where you don't need poetry because your presence is enough.
I stopped and looked back at him, smiling through a breeze that tasted like brine and freedom. In this moment, my skin humming with warmth and his silhouette etched against the horizon, I realized we aren’t just escaping the city—we are building something new from it.
He caught up to me, smelling of ocean air and cheap tobacco, wrapping an arm around my waist that felt like home had finally found its address.

Editor: Street-side Poet