I used to shout at the ocean with words on paper. Lines of boxy letters trying to map out the distance between then and then. In the spaces of time that exist only between the variant forms of salt. I'd sit for hours perched on top of a stone retaining wall watching the tide. Contemplate everything. I wanted to rip down all the walls. Wrench every door from the hinges. Figure out what was behind it all. Like the pink and red fleshy works under this fine delicate layer of skin. Instead, I threw polished stones into the water. Practiced writing in squared off capital letters like comics. And dreamed about fire. I smoked cigarettes and drank coffee. Sure that if I cried I might throw off the balance of the universe. Mostly I tried never to make sound. Only the faint scratch tap rubbing ink onto the wide expanses of notebooks. The more I wrote the more I knew I didn't know anything. Except that I couldn't stop the pressure behind my eyes or the burning ache in my shoulders. So I kept spilling guts. Looking for something. Some day I would burn all those words into oblivion. Knowing that I'd lost my sights. The ocean was the edge that stopped me from running.