the way the air smells different right before it rains, like the whole island is holding its breath waiting and me too, i guess, a stranger asked what i did and i just started listing things, like it was a party i wasn't invited to but showed up anyway -- marine biology stuff mostly, coral things, tide pool secrets, then surfing, then cosmo, then the whole damn community out here who's decided that maybe being happy isn't as impossible as we all thought, the words just kept coming, even though my voice felt too loud in my own ears, what did i DO today, it was like the island asked and i had to actually listen, and wow and then i was homesick, right there, not for ohio, but for… this? for the me who gets to be this? like i'm already missing it, even as i'm living it, because what if i forget? what if it goes away? what if i wake up one and it was all a dream? not sure why i'm putting this here but skin remembers what bones forget, but what does the heart remember? what does the SOUL remember? is there a place where all of this… accumulates? or is it just… now? like cosmo running into the water every single , all in, every time.