May no one stitch me into their white, pious intentions. May no one pluck at my sleeve for directions I have long since burned. I am allergic to the ‘Come here!’—that small, beckoning hook that seeks to pull me into the parlor of the predictable.

My life is no longer a quiet room; it is a storm that has finally broken its hinges. I am a wave, heavy and salt-crusted, rising far above the polite vibration of the atom. I am a fever of motion. I do not know the name of the shore I am hurtling toward, nor do I care for the map-makers’ ink. My place is not a dot on a grid; it is this very turbulence.

The world offers its paved roads like bandages, but I prefer the raw, unchartered ache of the deep. Let the wind shriek its cold truths; let the water hammer me thin. I am not a destination. I am the white-knuckle journey, the dark, rhythmic thrum of a heart that refuses to be still.

Let the sky blacken. Let the sea climb its own jagged stairs. I have found the pulse at the center of the chaos—a steady, predatory beat that tells me I am finally, violently, home.

©️ Beatriz Esmer