I did not choose to live on the beach; I actually don't like the beach at all and would much rather live in a city, in an apartment that looks just the same as anyone else's. But alas, I live here: on this beach. Alone.

It's not that bad, normally. After a while, I got used to all the salt in the air; it doesn't dry my eyes as much as it used to. I just stay indoors to keep away from the sun and the sand, burning hot and easily spread.

I can't escape the ocean, though.

Often, the ocean works its way into my house. It comes from underneath the floorboards, the tiny space left between my door and the floor, every nook and cranny it can use.

My very own ocean. I hate the ocean.

After a while, I've lost and learned to keep my things high up. It doesn't do much when the flood is overwhelming and I can barely keep from drowning, but sometimes the water only rises to my knees, and I can walk, albeit slowly, and see my things kept safe on their shelves.

I've asked for help before, for instructions or strategies, but most people don't live this near the beach, so no one knows how to make it better except just leaving the house altogether. I can't leave the house. I want to, sometimes. I let myself go in the floods and, for a second, think "this time I will drown". But I never do. Everything I have ever known, loved, built, understood, and tried so hard to keep is in this house, the house on the beach. There is nowhere else for me. Alas, I live here: on this beach. Alone.

The worst days are when the ever-present threat of the beach recedes. It sounds counterproductive, but I know better. I've learned better. When the water rushes in, uncaring not because it has anything against me but because it has not the capacity to care, I know how to deal with it. I can estimate how long it will take until it leaves. Until it's over, for now.

Sometimes the wind will stop blowing for a while, the ocean will start retreating as far as it can go, and even the air will stay so still, so quiet that it should be the highest state of peace I could achieve - it isn't. When it happens, I panic. The ocean doesn't change; it never gets smaller, it just goes somewhere else. It will be back. As strong as ever, claiming all that it had once lost, and I will be a casualty of the custody battle. The more the ocean retreats, the harder the waves will crash against my windows, making me cry out for help that I know is not coming. The survival instinct of screaming, just in case.

Still, I think the worst part is that it always ends. The constant overconsuming floods and chaos always break down rather dissatisfyingly into rubble. It's over. There is no outward force to decide what my state should be any longer; it's up to me to get up. I have to get up. Things have to go back to their places, and someone needs to clean up.

It always feels surreal, the aftermath. Cleaning is so casual, so boringly repetitive of a task that part of me can't comprehend that it's the logical progression. It can't have been that bad, right? It's not a catastrophe if I can fix this. It must've never happened at all. I must've broken a cup or twenty, and now I'm just cleaning up. As I should, since it's my fault.

I've started worrking on a very fancy jewelry store, was handed a little bag of at least 13 of my salaries worth of gems to give to the proper gem people because that's my literal job and my brain, legitimately and entirely unironically mind you, went:

oh my god I don't trust me with this shit, what if I ✨️accidentally✨️ steal it????????