ritika

one day, you and i take a trip to the beach. it is large, and sullied by human presence - a reminder that we ruin everything we touch, and that we want to touch everything. even things that are better left as they are.
you ask to take a stroll. 'in the direction of the sun', you smile, 'i want to be closer'. i want to tell you it can only either be futile or fatal, that you can only either chase forever or get burnt once. but you look like you know, and you reach out anyway, so i stay quiet.
i look at my footprints on the beach. in the next three seconds, the waves will come and wash the earth away from under my feet. then i will wonder if they ever existed.
still, we carve our initials into the sand with our fingertips. (what my footprints are to this vast, greedy ocean, i presume we are to this universe. today we are here, trying to make the world remember us. but tomorrow will be a different story.) (still, we try.)
it occurs to me that most things in the universe are trying to Be. more, or less, or just as they are.
you and I, we are no different. we too are trying to Be many things. be you, be me, be "us". this shared becoming - i want to call it love.
today I am, and one day I will cease to Be. so will you. and what is "us" might end infinitely sooner.
but this memory - of you smiling, reaching with outstretched palm toward the sun, hopeful in attempting the hopeless -
I hope it lives on forever.
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