The Salt Between Us: My Most Memorable Vacation

I remember the morning we left,
how you fumbled with the car keys
while I counted sunscreen bottles
like rosary beads in my palm.

The highway stretched before us,
a ribbon of possibility
threading through mountains
that wore clouds like crowns.

You drove with one hand on the wheel,
the other tracing patterns
on my thigh, spelling out
promises in a language
only skin understands.

We stopped at roadside diners
where coffee tasted like burnt dreams
and you laughed at my terrible jokes
about truckers and their CB radios.

Your laughter—
that sound I collected
like seashells,
storing it in the chambers
of my heart.

The motel had thin walls
and thinner towels,
but you danced in the bathroom
while I watched your silhouette
through the frosted glass,
memorizing the curve of your shoulders
against artificial light.

Do you remember
how we got lost
three times before noon?
How I insisted we didn't need
the GPS, that adventure
was about wrong turns
and happy accidents?

You were patient then,
patient as tide pools
waiting for the next wave
to bring them gifts
from the deep.

The ocean announced itself
long before we saw it—
that salt-sweet tang
threading through pine air,
promising vast horizons
and the democracy of sand
between our toes.

Our first glimpse—
you pulled over so suddenly
I thought something was wrong.
But you just sat there,
hands gripping the steering wheel
like it might float away,
staring at all that blue
as if seeing color
for the first time.

I understood then
why ancient maps
marked unknown waters
with dragons and warnings.
The ocean doesn't care
about our small human plans.

We found the cottage
perched on dunes
like a wooden prayer,
weathered silver by decades
of salt air and storm.
The key was under the mat
exactly where the owner promised.

You carried me across the threshold
though we weren't married,
laughing at your own theatrics
while I protested
and secretly loved
every dramatic gesture.

That first night,
we made love with windows open,
letting the sound of waves
score our breathing,
our sighs mixing
with the eternal conversation
between water and shore.

In the morning,
you woke before me,
and I found you on the deck
wrapped in a blanket,
coffee steaming in your hands,
watching the sun paint
the water in shades
of gold and salmon.

"Look," you whispered,
pointing to where dolphins
drew silver arcs
through the morning light.
"They're dancing."

We spent five days
learning the cottage's creaks,
the way the shower
sang in B-flat minor,
how the screen door
slammed like punctuation
at the end of every sentence.

You taught me to identify
sandpipers by their nervous energy,
how they skittered along the waterline
like wind-up toys
someone forgot to turn off.

I taught you
to read the tide charts,
how the moon pulls
at everything liquid
in this world—
oceans, rivers,
the blood in our veins.

We built castles
and watched them surrender
to the incoming tide,
learning lessons about
impermanence and beauty
that we'd forget
as soon as we got home.

You collected shells
while I collected
the sound of your voice
calling my name
across the wind.

On the third day,
we hiked to the lighthouse
where the keeper's ghost
supposedly still tends
the automated beacon.
The climb left us breathless,
but the view—
miles of coastline
unfolding like a secret
finally being told.

You kissed me there
at the top of the world,
and I tasted salt
and possibility
on your lips.

"Promise me," you said,
"we'll remember this moment
when we're old and gray
and fighting about
the electric bill."

I promised,
not knowing how prophetic
those words would prove.

The storm came on day four,
turning the cottage
into a snow globe
someone had shaken
too hard.

We lost power
but found each other
in the darkness,
playing cards by flashlight
while rain drummed
urgent messages
on the roof.

You won every hand
and I accused you
of cheating,
which made you laugh
until you cried,
or maybe you were crying
until you laughed.

The distinction seemed
unimportant then.

When the power returned,
we celebrated with champagne
that had been waiting
in the refrigerator
for no particular occasion.

"To storms survived,"
you toasted,
and we drank to that,
to resilience and candlelight,
to the way crisis
can strip away
everything unnecessary,
leaving only what matters.

Our last morning,
you insisted we watch
the sunrise from the beach,
dragging me from warm sheets
into the pre-dawn cold.

"Trust me," you said,
and I did,
I always did.

We sat on driftwood
worn smooth by decades
of storms and sunshine,
watching the horizon
catch fire.

The sun rose like a promise
being kept,
painting the sky
in colors that don't
have names yet.

You were quiet then,
and I knew you were
trying to memorize
every detail,
the way I was
memorizing you—
the way the light
caught in your hair,
how your eyes
reflected the burning sky.

"I don't want to go home,"
you said finally,
and I understood
that you meant
more than just
the cottage,
more than just
the ocean.

You meant this version
of us,
this couple
who had time
to watch sunrises
and argue about
the proper way
to build sandcastles.

The drive home
was quieter than
the drive there,
both of us lost
in our own thoughts,
trying to figure out
how to carry
this much joy
back to a world
that had no room
for it.

We stopped at the same diner
but the coffee tasted different,
bitter with the knowledge
that some things
can't be repeated,
only remembered.

You reached across
the Formica table,
laced your fingers
through mine,
and said,
"We'll do this again."

But we never did.
Life intervened
with its urgent demands,
its deadlines and obligations,
its way of making
five days at the beach
seem like a luxury
we couldn't afford.

Years later,
long after we'd forgotten
how to be kind
to each other,
long after words
became weapons
and silence
became a country
we lived in
separately,

I would remember
that morning
on the driftwood throne,
how the sun
painted everything
golden,
how you believed
we could hold
onto anything
that beautiful.

Now, when storms
rattle the windows
of this different house,
with its different ghosts,
I think of that couple
who danced in motel bathrooms
and collected seashells
like prayers.

They believed
in forever,
those two,
believed the tide
would always return,
believed love
was renewable
as sunrise.

They were wrong
about forever
but right about
the returning tide,
right about the way
beauty insists
on coming back
even when
we think
we've lost
the capacity
to see it.

She still walks
that beach sometimes,
in dreams
or in the space
between sleeping
and waking,
searching for shells
that might hold
the sound of his laughter,
the echo of promises
made when the world
was young
and full of possibility.

And he—
he drives past
that motel
sometimes,
slowing down
to catch a glimpse
of the room
where they learned
each other's bodies
like new languages,
where they believed
they could translate
desire into permanence.

They don't know
about each other's
pilgrimages
to the altar
of what was,
these two
who once shared
everything,
now sharing only
the salt air
of memory,
the tide pools
of what if,
the horizon
of what might
have been.

(c) pebblegalaxy.blog

#poetry #freeverse #love #memory #ocean #vacation #relationships #loss #nostalgia #beach #romance #bittersweet #travel #poetrycommunity