The Definitive Lifestyle
The doctor said: walk.
So I walk.
Elderly couples pass me,
matching pace,
the way you do
when you have been doing this
for years,
when the sea is no longer
a surprise.
I wonder who decided.
Him, her,
or someone in a white coat
who said: walk.
The surfers carry their boards
toward the water
like people with somewhere to be,
like people who chose this—
or were chosen by it
so long ago
it no longer matters.
Later, some of them stand
at the water's edge
and just look.
Out.
The elderly couples stop too,
eventually.
Everyone stops, here,
at some point.
The ocean does not ask
why you came.
It doesn't ask
if you would rather
be somewhere else.
It just keeps going,
the way it was going
before any of us
were told
to be here.