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the first daydream.

male reader.

Sometimes, in fitful sleep, you dream of a beach.

It’s not termed paradise, not in your mind’s eye. The coarse grains, the lapping, gentle waves, they suggest something deeper. The slight froth and sea spray. The violet, orange and gold. It’s serene, and there’s something to be said about the seraphic energy of it all.

The only tranquility is in your heart, watching the ebb and flow as time simply passes by. Maybe you have your hands in your pockets. But something about the air feels different.

It’s not just the salt you’re breathing in, the clarity of being by the sea. You’re watching the clouds roll by, breathing hard, not because it’s difficult, but because you’re not just breathing. There’s lingering sentiment in the air.

The sun is almost down. Night will fall soon, and you know it’s because you’re late, having spent too much time ogling and tearing. And you know that it’ll be difficult once the sun fully sets.

But for now, the beach is aglow. Like light flames, a born fire, dancing across the surface of glass- yet it’s not at all yellow.

There’s sorrow in your heart, you know for sure. Unresolved. It’s in wilted form, in the grains that cascade over your dress shoes and sometimes into them, building up to something that borderlines discomfort.

But now there’s a burning too. An ache.

You breathe through your mouth. Once. Twice. Today feels impossible.

The sand shifts beneath your shifting feet. For once, you don’t feel like you’re trapped within yourself. Your mind is above, higher, processing the bigger picture. The motions.

The wisp of a hand, important, sliding past your veins, moving you forward. The sounds of your own thoughts, the voices, the water.

There’s a spirit in the air.

The floor looks like white silk. Ceremonial. It’s only sand because of the way the particles break apart and back together again. With no one else in sight, you’re left with only your own aimless direction and an urge to weep at all of it.

A part of you feels like she’s still here.

And now that there’s more, everything you thought you knew and needed subsequently uprooted, you realise with a severed laugh that you’re nervous.

Six wings. And you can’t allow any of them to be clipped. Because what’s etched into your heart, gentle calligraphy, is the line that things matter now.

That the you you forgot, the one with devotion and broken promises, that person is back.

The one with a heart that can be wounded.

The beach is a gateway. It’s the next antifragile, fearless step. It’s an unachievable dream. Truthfully? You’re not ready.

But nothing suggested you would be.