It was my job to let it go.
I tell myself that, as I sit upon the shore, staring into the waves.
I run my hand back in forth in an arch, until all the white surface sand is pulled back to reveal the black volcanic sediment beneath.
I write S A L V A T I O N into the black sand, and sprinkle the white on top to make the letters viewable.
I rest my chin on my knee.
I’ve woken every day clenching my jaw tightly. I wait for it to stop but become more and more aware I will most likely have to take my muscle relaxers to get the tissue to let go of the stress that has long passed. It lives inside my body and my body remembers when even I do not.
A shadow passes over me and I squint up through my eyelashes at an eagle slowly gliding through the air above me. I look around and see three others, swarming and dipping down into the oceans waves. One comes out with a fish, which it then drops about 200 feet away from me.
The beach is empty, and three of the eagles in the group pass over me, after the first, with one circling back toward the fish on the ground. There are five total, each passing through the air about fifteen feet above my head. I stand and their long shadows give my silhouette wings for a split second.
I begin walking, carefully moving closer and closer to where I see the last eagle gracefully ripping apart his meal.
Eventually I kneel in the sand in front of him, ten feet separating us, as he pulls long strings of the belly of the fish out and into his mouth.
I watch him eat for a long time.
Does God speak to everyone this way?
I cannot escape the feeling that I am loved by the underlying current of things.
They give to me, and answer me.