The ocean dries up when I touch it. Fish and algae disintegrate; every drop of salt water seeps into sand. Emoto says it’s my negative energy, that the waves would rather go bare than be exposed to me. I don’t know the ocean’s feelings. And it doesn’t care to know mine: I’ve given up looking for my notice of its departure. All I know is the little girl inside me, and the apologies I keep giving her. I write sorries in handwriting she doesn’t know as her own. I’m a stranger to her now. Her tiered dresses hang dusty in my closet, gray around the seams. The mole on my forehead mirrors hers, and, to her disappointment, the scar on her fingertip still hasn’t faded. I try to tell her about the science of nostalgia, about sensory stimuli and chronological remoteness. Instead, she squawks at the seagulls, wonders where the sea has gone, wanders into the field of sand. Emoto didn’t deserve the criticism. Because I too want to blame the water. Even if the crystals are uglier, it’s easier than blaming myself. Let the water take the weight my body is too weak to hold. She clutches the sand as the winds blow. The grit slips through her fingers, but she will not move.

– Ruby Varallo