Mudflats

A lone cloud drifted over the mudflats this morning, and I couldn’t help but wonder—if no one gazes up, would it still ache for attention? The sea wind stretched its shadow into a thousand shimmering threads, each one a whisper, a drug waiting to stir my blood. But not yet—not until she comes. I conserve my gifts like a miser, yet I squander time in dreams as if they were endless.

I imagine the cloud has a soul, or something like it. Maybe it too feels what I do—a hunger for freedom, an ache for meaning. But this is foolish, I know. I’m no oracle. I’m a crab tucked deep in my shell, wise only to the grit before me. I chew on fleeting things, blind to the walls that keep the larger world at bay. I thought I knew the ocean. It was only a tidepool, ringed with stone.

My shell is beautiful—etched in patterns, solid. It keeps the predators out, gives my soft love a space to live. Here, romance doesn’t need moonlight or poetry. Just proximity. Just survival. And I—somehow—still get along with the world.

So open-mouthed, I wait.

Come. Kiss me until you’ve had your fill.