The Embers of Afterglow

Glass shards. That's what the city felt like lately. Sharp, jagged edges of neon and noise, cutting through my skin until I was nothing but a collection of scars.
Then, the silence found me. Here. The salt spray is a cold balm for a feverish mind.
The fire crackles—a rhythmic pulse against the encroaching dark. It breathes. A tiny, orange sun trapped in the sand, defying the tide's heavy weight.
I wrap the wool tighter around my shoulders. Heavy. Grounding. Like his hand on the small of my back during that last rainy night in London, before the static took over.
Memory is a fractured mirror; I see him in every flicker of the flame. A ghost in the warmth. He promised we could find the center again, away from the skyscrapers and the digital roar.
The waves crash, erasing footprints as if they were never there. Healing isn't a straight line; it's this—the slow, rhythmic erosion of pain by something much older, much warmer.

Editor: Kaleidoscope