The Horizon That Never Ends Because It Hasn't Begun

I am sitting on a beach that exists only because I chose to look at it, yet the sand beneath me is colder than my memories of home.
They say warmth heals, but here, in this blinding white light, heat is merely an absence of shadow—a logical fallacy where you feel burned by something that isn't touching you. My skin drinks the sun like a thirsty ghost drinking its own reflection.

He told me he loved my smile before I even learned how to form it with my lips; perhaps we are trapped in a causal loop where our future defines our past. Every wave that crashes against the shore is actually retreating into tomorrow, meaning the ocean is constantly arriving from nowhere and leaving for everywhere at once.

I reach out toward him—or do I? Maybe he is just the phantom of my own desire, an urban romance rendered in salt air and pixels. My touch on his shoulder feels like a memory of a future we haven't lived yet. We are healing from wounds that will only be inflicted by this very moment’s peace.

The sun sets at noon, rising again the moment it disappears beneath my eyelids. In this paradox, I am both alone and completely held. My bikini is a cage of threads against an infinite freedom; I am perfectly still while moving toward every horizon simultaneously.

Editor: Paradox