The Uninvited Tide: Notes on a Circular Return

The sea does not ask if the shore is ready.

It simply returns, a rhythmic persistent ghost,

carrying the salt-crusted debris of a thousand yesterdays.

You stand on the wet sand of your current self,

watching the water drag back a splintered wooden boat—

the one you pushed away with trembling hands

three decades ago, believing it was finally gone.

It returns in a small way first:

a particular scent of damp tatami in a rainstorm,

the specific weight of a key that no longer fits any door.

Then it comes all at once, a sudden crest of cold foam.

You recognize the shape, the jagged edge where it broke,

but the texture is wrong. The wood is slick with moss;

the memory has been rearranged by the pressure of the deep.

You thought you had settled the accounts.

You thought the silence you built was a solid wall.

But the return proves that nothing is ever truly discarded;

it is only held in a dark, oceanic suspension

until the moon pulls it back to your feet.

As the water recedes, it leaves behind a fine silt.

It settles in the creases of your palms.

You are familiar with this feeling, yet you are a stranger to it.

The person who sent the boat away is dead,

replaced by this person who now stands staring at the wreckage.

What remains after the tide goes back?

Not the boat itself, but the knowledge of the circle.

The recognition that the past is not a straight line receding,

but a tide that breathes against your neck while you sleep.

You are changed not by the object’s arrival,

but by the realization that you were waiting for it

without ever knowing you were standing still.