Handfuls of Dust

Grains of Sand

I'm standing on a crowded beach alone.

I watch the Delta waves churn like they're being stirred by Mother Nature as a way of signifying that it's late and it's time to go inside.

Like the rebellious child that I've always been, I disregard the forecast presented to me.

I gaze at the sunset and think of you: a horizon that I will never reach.

I let the sand trickle through my fingers like the countless times I let you slip through my grasp.

You were always too fragile for me to hold. I was always too headstrong to gently turn the pages and read your mind.

Every time I tried to lift your flimsy heart, I crushed it like aluminum foil in the palm of my hand.

I read once that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.

If the former is true, then the probability of me hitching my wagon to your star is probably like 1 in a septillion.

Or in other words, "No chance."

I had my shot, but I shoved Cupid to the floor and like him I missed the mark.

I tried to anchor you to me, but heavy storms tore my old wooden ship apart and I let you drown with it.

Lost at sea in search of you, you disappeared like a sailor missing in action.

I should have seen you as the prize of my life before you became sunken treasure.

You've heard the exhausted cliché, "You never know what you have until it's gone."

But the truth is I never knew what I had in the beginning.

I still don't.