A Letter to the Ocean

Dear Ocean,

I write to you not with ink but with air,
With the breath of my spirit laid utterly bare.
For who else would listen so deeply, so wide —
With no need to answer, no need to confide?

You, who cradle the moon in your tide-stricken hands,
Who swallow the secrets of ships and of sands.
I come to you now, with my heart overflown,
For every shore needs a place to feel known.

I’m sorry for the weight of the things that I bring —
The fears I can’t bury, the songs I can’t sing.
They rest on your waves like the driftwood of doubt,
But you take them all in, never spitting them out.

If you could, would you tell me what lies down below?
Do the sunken dreams rot, or do wild gardens grow?
Is there peace in the depths where no echoes remain,
Or do sorrows just sink like the slow-falling rain?

I envy your patience, your endless repose,
How you break, but you mend — how you fight, but you flow.
I wish I could learn from the pulse of your waves,
How to rise after falling, how the silent still saves.

I’ve tried to be strong, but I splinter like wood,
I’ve chased after joy, but it fled where I stood.
You, though — you never pursue or retreat,
You carry the storm, the salt, and the heat.

I’ve watched as the sunset has melted in you,
How it burns like a fire but drowns without clue.
I wonder, dear Ocean, if endings are kind —
If it’s fire or water that eases the mind.

Sometimes, I fear that I’m nothing at all —
Just foam on the crest of a wave, bound to fall.
But you remind me that foam still belongs to the sea,
A fragment of something as endless as "we."

I dream of your depths, of your fathomless blue,
Where sunbeams dissolve and the cold cuts through.
I wonder if mermaids sing hymns down below,
Or if silence is sacred where no winds can blow.

Tell me, Ocean, have you heard it before —
The sound of a heart that just can't anymore?
Does it ripple like thunder that fades from the shore,
Or vanish as quiet as footsteps on floor?

I lay my regrets at the edge of your grace,
Like sea-glass worn smooth by the harshest embrace.
Mistakes once so jagged now glimmer like jewels,
For even the broken can be made into tools.

Teach me, dear Ocean, the gift of release —
To let go of the storm and to make room for peace.
If even the shore must be carved and remade,
Then surely my soul, too, can weather the blade.

I have loved and been lost, I have risen and drowned,
I have followed wild echoes where no one is found.
But you — you remind me that all things must roam,
And even the lost are still part of the home.

So take all my fears, take my doubts and my dread.
Take the words I can’t say, the thoughts left unsaid.
Carry them far where the deep currents turn,
Where no one will find them, where no one will yearn.

But leave me with hope, like the pearl in the shell —
A treasure found only in darkness’s well.
For if the deep is as quiet as you,
Then maybe in silence, I’ll find something true.

With every wave you remind me once more,
That nothing is wasted, not time, not the shore.
For even the driftwood finds purpose again,
And even the tempest will quiet to rain.

Yours always,
The One on the Shore

- Khushi Kaul