Unmoored

You came into my life in the hush between June and August.
In that brief stretch of months,
it felt like a lifetime I wasn’t ready to surrender.

My feelings arrived sudden and unsteady,
the way storms fall upon the shore without warning.
I should have known better—
tempests never leave the sea the same.

I used to think, “Delusional? That’s them, not me.”
Yet in my mind I kept carving fragile cities in the sand,
waiting for tides that always returned,
while you vanished into a distance I could never follow.

So here I am, year after year,
measuring time in five hundred days of summer,
always wondering if I’ll ever see you again when autumn comes.