She sits alone.

She sits alone, and watches the waves slowly roll in one by one. So calm she stares. So tranquil she appears. Her dark hair whips around her face and neck, caught in the warm summer breeze. The seagulls cry, the ocean breathes and sighs. Her feet are sunken in the sand, they do not move. Her fingers caress the lonely rock she’s perched on, while the shade from the tree behind her moves to and fro over her legs and arms.

The sky is free from clouds… but a storm brews. A dark, unlike any other she knows of, rumbles and moves within its cove. It echoes voices and grumbles with slow movement. Movement within her soul. Moving towards something. Around something. Something which burns within her. Something which holds her mind, restrained and bound and gagged and tortured by its presence. The presence of a dark secret. A dark memory which plagues her every day. So still she sits so pretty. So busy in her suffering. So busy in her silence.

Alone on a desolate rock, she watches the sea. She watches the sky. But she doesn’t see. She only senses the memory. She only hears the sounds, smells the airs, and tastes the bitterness of that time. A time lived long ago, but deeply embedded within her now. Her present, which remains tightly leashed by a past unforgiving.

Her brown green eyes blink and stare. The voices turn within her.

“Calm down… I didn’t have a choice… I know… I know… I’m sorry…”

A boats horn sounds in the distance. Her ears fail to hear. The sun shines brightly all around. Her eyes fail to see. They’re all preoccupied.

“Help me please… it hurts… please…someone!”

A small crab scurries across the sand and buries itself in its tiny hideaway. A little girl screams with glee while playing in the surf. All the while, she sits undisturbed.

The storm rages its war within her. It brews, never raining. It twists and darkens the less she speaks and the more she thinks. It mutates and sparks and turns up the light to consume it. Consume it amongst the rubble. Amongst the shrapnel. Within the currents of her strong and damaging emotions, all daunting. All haunting her very existence.

Her hands run up and down the warm rock, feeling its smooth curves. Those hands, stained red in her mind, she cannot look at them. She cannot look at herself.Forever more she shall be punished. Forever more she shall be beaten by her past memories which loom over her like the storm looms over her world. A world so exotic, filled with nature and wonder and beauty and laughter. But forever tainted. Corrupted. Damaged. Mauled. Amputated. Her world, filled with so much awe, is left broken and limping towards the end of its every day.

She sits alone and watches the waves. She sits alone and waits for her reprieve. For time to ease the storm and roll the clouds away. She bears the memories, until time can wash them further away into the depths.

She sits alone and waits for the waves within her world to pull the stones of her life to where they belong. To the depths of her subconscious. To a place in her mind she never has to visit again.

She sits alone. She watches the waves. She waits for time to heal.