Her
He woke early. The day was cold and he dressed quickly, shrugging his broad shoulders into a sweater she had once worn.
His feet hit the pavement, a steady rhythm coinciding with his ragged breath. His shadow drew out long in front of him as the day slowly began.
He ran along the road parallel to the ocean, the roar of the breaking waves reminding him of how much he missed her. He turned the corner and slowed, surveying the coastline, the places he had shared with her.
The silhouettes of his childhood dreams chased each other in shades of faded memories along the sand. The inclination to run into the ocean like she had came over him but instead he just closed his eyes, her laughter reverberating across the empty beach. They had sat watching the ocean lines in the late afternoon, him listening carefully to her stories and noticing how her thoughts reached out so much further than his own. He had lifted her, spun her round and she had felt so high, her face so lit up and her soul full of dreams.
Walking her home, he had showed her the Southern Cross highlighted in the night, in the endlessness of the unknown, oblivious to its own symbolism. She had stared up at the darkness, her sad eyes brimming with what he didn’t know.
As the summer drew to a close, standing in the day’s shredded remains of sunshine, she had nudged him, tilting her head toward his friends waiting impatiently in the car, surfboards stacked on the roof, invisble threads tying them to the coast, as he hesitated to leave her. Go, she had told him, grinning broadly, neither of them knowing that his assumption of her always being there when he returned wasn't unconditional.
He stood at the edge of the water, the swells shining with ice cold sunlight, always moving, always changing, the tide receding like the seasons. His breath was choked in his throat, memories of her running toward him, smiling, pulling at his hand, were stronger than his efforts to forget. He ran his hand through his hair, frowning out at the ocean, his refuge, his sanctuary of risk. The wind chilled the air pushing west against the tide, against him. He turned back toward the desolate sand dunes, abandoned even by the birds who had flown to a warmer place. Ignoring his own intention of retracing her vacant steps, bowing his head against the wind and pushing his hands into his pockets, he bagan to walk, taking the shortcut home, away from his recollections of summer.
Poetry by Paloma Ozier, Byron Bay High School - Australia