The Tsunami that never came

I waited at the shores,
barefoot with fear,
the ocean before me
churned with unnamed things.

But I stepped toward it—
and the waves pulled back.

Cracks opened in the seabed,
revealing a starfish curled in sleep,
mud hugging its quiet breath.
The coarse sand softened—
slime and silt beneath my feet,
cool and yielding.

I stepped further in
The ocean hushed
The waves withdrew again

I stood there, still,
waiting for the great undoing—
the roar,
the crash,
the destruction
the drowning swell.

But it never came.

Then—
I looked ahead.
There was land—solid, wide,
no troubled water,
no storm.
Above me,
the sun still shone—
with warmth,
not heat.

I took a step.
Then another.
Then I picked up the pace.

And I was walking—
on land or on water,
I do not know.

But forward.
Definitely,
forward.