(Poem about loss and love, wrapped in the shore’s rhythm)
The boogie board drifted in,
sunbleached plastic and peeling foam.
It wasn’t much –
just a small thing,
swaying between the waves,
a relic of someone’s summer,
left behind to be tossed again by the tide.
I watched it ride the water,
not knowing it was my heart it was echoing.
A careless thing.
A light thing.
A harmless thing,
but lost just the same.
I used to believe love was like a boogie board –
something to ride, to race across the water,
until the ocean yanked it out from beneath me.
It wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t her fault.
It wasn’t even the shore’s fault.
It was just… time.
But the beach is a giver,
a taker,
and a recycler of wreckage.
I think that’s why I keep coming back.
Nothing ever truly goes away.
There’s a love somewhere buried
beneath the dunes and broken shells.
It’s waiting to be found again.
I lost a boogie board today,
but I also found a piece of something else,
something old and washed up,
a fragment of the same tide
that carried my heart out to sea,
only to bring it back to shore
– once more, once more.
~ The Sandbar Society
Invitation to Share:
What have you lost? What have you found?
On this Flotsam Friday, share your own stories of love lost and found –
whether it was a boogie board or a piece of your heart.