There is nothing like this in the world. Nothing quite like this in all of nature, so completely unconquerable by human destruction. No matter how many ill-dressed tourists walked its face, no matter how disgraced, its incomparable nature still lies there, roaring in your face. It isn't some picturesque view, still and quiet. It's a force as strong as nature itself, constantly moving, constantly calling out to draw you in.

I was drawn in.

Had it been just one thing, one simple trait, I could never have been so consumed. The mass of mountains, the depths of canyons, the rush of vast waters, ball things that could be captured with a single glance, perfect in their stillness and complete without voice or need. These gems of nature could not compare in but beauty.

My love, that which consumed me, was not just one thing, one pretty facet or reality. It is the sand beneath my feet, a foundation which nothing could be founded on, a gritty slate that wiped itself clean with time, impervious, but completely pliable. Voices shattered against its face, life ground down to dust. The mightiest of mountains, they say, degrade to build its body. All I know is mountains shatter, wood will decay, ice will melt, but sand is ever the same. Take a mallet to its face and you'll take not from it, but find instead you've given yourself. The sky that hangs about my head is not a pretty artist's rendition; she is the solid that hangs about my head, infinity with sharp limits. Her color changes to fit her mood. Blue is for peace and tranquility. When she covers herself with clouds she's shy and mellow, but when a bright, shiny yellow sun hangs round her neck like an oversized diamond she's happy, showing off her joy with her warm, infecting rays, inviting people to frolic under her. When she's tired of all the pomp and circumstance, she retires to the dark for her solitude, allowing her long, black hair to fall over her bright and shining face. Her hair covers all but the shining sparks of her that break through the shroud and one beautiful eye that can't help but the keep watch on those that seek her when she hides her face. When she's weary of the world, her eyelid droops heavy, but as time passes, she's rejuvenated once more, her one eye wide and watching. Once again the world becomes affected by her excitement. Nothing on Earth is free from her pull, which brings us to the final facet of that which consumes me mind and body: her voice and her lover, the mirror to her face, the sea. His every expression is a reflection of her. He is a peace when she is at peace. When her excitement shines through her bright, wicked eye, he dances, reflecting her joy and hoping her eye might fall to him. His movement stirs the air, whipping up the wind with his frantic breath. But the line that divides him from her stretches infinite as both he and she, impossibly close, but never touching. His voice cries constantly for her, sometimes a gentle cry, sometimes a deafening roar, but never silent, never content, always calling for more.

These are all the things I see as I stand on the shore, but there is so much more. My senses are all overwhelmed. Infinity for my eyes to see, my hears deafened by the waves' call, these I have told you. My skin as warm or cold as she feels, this you know. But what of the sea-green salt I smell in the air and taste of my tongue? These things to me that are so subconscious that I take them for granted even when the love I feel seems to great my heart might burst, it is these that draw me back to the shore. These find a way to reach me when my eyes are blind to beauty and my ears are closed to helpless calls. At these times, when I've locked myself away inland, pursuing goals that I made up to fill the void I didn't even know existed within me, I'll catch a familiar smell in the sterile city air, or find on my tongue a strange aftertaste to daily life that isn't quite normal. With this tiny gesture, my memory comes to me like the vast flood of the sea himself, holding just as strong a sway over me when my skin is pale and dry.

Nothing simple could have drawn me away. Perhaps beauty could fool me once, but it would not have been love. With each of her facets, she stole one of my own, until all that's left of me is flesh and bone. My eyes linger on the heavens, my feet lie sheltered in sand, my soul moves with the motion of the sea. All these things that once belong to me, I now give away willingly. I have been drawn in. I have been consumed. All that I am belongs to the sea.

Author's Notes: I wasn't 100% on whether to consider this a story or an essay. It started off as me just babbling about the sea because I haven't been there in so long (nearly a year! *gasp*) but before I was even finished, I'd begun imagining a narrator for it. Soon enough, the voice speaking wasn't my own. The narrator ended up being a twenty-something year old guy in a bathrobe type thing on the shore staring out at that line of infinity between the sun and the sea. He's about to be "consumed" literally by the sea because in his poetic trance he's begun to walk forward, pulled in and out by the waves, and eventually getting in over his head. Some dashing stranger on the beach will soon come to the conclusion that he's suicidal and come to the daring rescue! (He he, any informed guesses as to what kind of story is soon to appear on my profile?) Back to topic though, if anyone has any input on to whether this is more of an essay or a story, feel free to say so in your review!