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.
Jia Zhenia 