The Tide Takes All

The Tide Takes All She walks the salt-worn path, her bones like driftwood dry, Her hands that held a thousand tasks now tremble at the sky. The house behind is full of ghosts—of meals, of tears, of bread, Of children's voices turned to stone inside her weary head. The doctor's words, a hollow bell, still echo in her chest, This cage of flesh that fails her now, this body's long unrest. She feels the years like heavy coats, each one a fading scar, And love—that bright and cruel ship—has sailed so very far. Oh, take me, tide, take all of me— The names, the hurts, the memory. Scrub my skin with salt and foam, Unmake this woman, bring her home. Where nothing is, and nothing was, And all is water, all is thus. She stands where sand meets endless grey, her shadow thin as thread, And watches as the waves erase the footprints she has spread. She thinks of him—that careless man, his promises like sand, Who swore the moon would never wane, then slipped from her command. She thinks of all the silent wars, the words she could not say, The dreams she drowned in laundry piles, the love she gave away. Her body aches, her spirit cracks, her beauty now a ghost, But here, the sea remembers not—it loves its children most. Oh, take me, tide, take all of me— The names, the hurts, the memory. Scrub my skin with salt and foam, Unmake this woman, bring her home. Where nothing is, and nothing was, And all is water, all is thus. Oh, take me, tide, take all that's left— The grief, the rage, the sweet regret. I am not she who bore such weight, I am the shore, I am the strait. I am the foam, I am the spray, I am the night that eats the day. And in the deep, where light must fall, There is no woman—there is all.