finding out (again) that it's distracting to write on beaches

Teal says we are waves trying to see the ocean. I sit on the shoreline, a person with the ocean in front of me, and I still can not see it. The horizon is too flat for me to believe it isn't resting at the tips of my toes, too calm against the sky that tells me wind is invisible unless it is carrying something, like how I feel I could walk into a liquor store where it is illegal to be 18, 19, or 20 years of age and walk out five minutes later with my palms empty. For five minutes, the woman behind the counter in the black tank top with a plastic snake around her neck would watch me and then forget. I tell this to the sand while it is holding my footprints, packed so tightly there is no air between the grains, and I wonder aloud if they are each trying to see the island.