Jia Zhenia

I was sitting on the shore
when the sky turned without asking—
a storm gathering its voice
in the distance.

Then a wave rose—
sudden, towering,
as if the ocean had chosen me.

It crashed.

And pulled me out with it.

I tried to swim against it,
kicking toward something I could still call mine.
I fought the current
like resistance could rewrite the tide.

But I was too small
for something that did not need my permission.

Before I understood what was happening,
I was no longer on land.

So I surrendered.

I opened my eyes beneath the water,
expecting silence,
an ending.

But light was still there—
thin gold threads
piercing through the blue.

I was not dead.

The ocean was alive around me—
coral breathing in color,
reefs unfolding like quiet cities,
fish weaving through me
as if I had always belonged.

I let go of the fight.

I followed the current,
the rhythm,
the flow of the water.

And I learned how to float.
I did not want to leave.

I wanted to become part of the current—
to dissolve into the vastness,
to be carried
without question, without return.

But then—

a light.

Spinning slowly above,
steady against the storm.

A lighthouse.

Waiting, patiently.

For me to return to the surface,
Reunited with the land.

Calling me back
without a voice.

it simply stayed—
anchored to the shore,
meeting me gently,
never leaving, never taking.

I knew then—

I could love the ocean
and still not belong to it.

I could be changed by its depths,
its beauty, its danger,
its wild, consuming grace—

and still choose the shore.

So I returned.

Not because the ocean meant less,
but because I was not made
to live inside what could take me whole.

And even now,
standing on the sand at the beach,

I still remember
what it felt like
to be carried away.