The Child On the Shore

I sit beneath the pylons
Staring, cold, into the water.
The shades of sand amaze me, sifting wetly through my hand.
I've been here years, it seems to me.
So long I've ceased remembering why I ever stopped to rest.
Beneath this pier of loneliness.
A silence stretching longer
than a sentence never spoken,
than a question never answered,
than a kiss that never landed
on the promise of her lips,
pauses thickly in my conscience,
seems to question my existence,
seems to ask me why I'm here.
Naked toes twist through the granules.
They're content to dig through darkness
for a promise I've forgotten if it ever really lived.
There's a prize hid in the shadows,
if I ever make it deeper than the sand that keeps refilling
all the holes in which I've searched.