The sea is almost black tonight
and I stand where the light thins out of sight
Waves arrive with a practiced grace
then drag their secrets from this place
I have rules I follow in the day
measured words and debts I pay
A spine kept straight, a tempered voice
the habit of calling duty choice
But here where the shoreline starts to blur
something quieter begins to stir
Not hope not faith not even fear
just a weight that feels too near
The horizon draws a broken line
between what is yours and what is mine
I watch it split the dying sun
like something ending half undone
Salt settles slowly on my skin
as if it knows where I have been
There are thoughts I do not let grow loud
they move like fog without a shroud
I speak of strength I speak of will
of climbing higher standing still
yet in the dark behind my eyes
a smaller harsher weather lies
It says the climb was never steep
it says the promises were cheap
it asks what all this labor meant
where all the careful years were spent
A gull cuts once across the grey
then disappears without a say
I envy how it does not stay
how it can turn and slip away
The tide keeps working at the sand
erasing edges grain by grain
I think of all I built by hand
and how it thins beneath the strain
There is a rule that men like me
do not confess to what they see
We swallow dusk we seal the seam
we call it discipline not dream
Still when the water pulls back slow
it leaves behind a darker glow
A mirror I would rather pass
a face half stone and half cracked glass
I am not proud of this dim view
the undertow I wander through
but neither will I close my eyes
and crown my silence as disguise
The sky goes bruised from blue to coal
and something answers in my soul
not loud not brave not even clear
just here
just here