Echoes of Moonlight: Between Reality and Reverie

In the neighborhood during our youth, I saw streetlights and taillights, lighters kindling spoons, and guns blazing—but there was no moonlight. When my mother lit the stove pilot with a match and we let the moon shine through our back shed, sneaking to the attic, the room feels empty now, as if the ghosts of our laughter are mourning your absence. The laughter that once echoed through these paper-thin walls has faded into a melancholic whisper.

Looking at the corner of the attic, I catch a glimpse of the paper fortune teller we once played with, trying to catch a glimpse of your chuckle at the fortunes, but it slips through my fingers like sand. The moon is now a shadow of dead memories, whispering secrets we used to share.

Coming back to reality, I remember how I would sit on the stairs, talking to him as we observed the spider web together. The faint light would trickle through the attic doorway, illuminating his face as he shared memories of us sleeping under the moon without a cover. He... he was the one who taught me why the moon had no light of its own. Burying my face into his neck, inhaling his cheap cologne, we stayed there for minutes... hours... moments...? Snapping back into reality, I get hit with the realization: it was all a hallucination... again?

Before leaving, I wandered around the house. Cloud, our cat, was asleep on the half-knitted wool sock, the tissue-like curtains dancing with the breeze, and the hallway lay silent. Walking with dreams of you loving me, I imagined they would one day shine like the sea under moonlight. I knocked on your door, trying to get a response, but you never answered. Am I hallucinating again...? Or am I checking in with reality? I don’t know.

You.

You’re the river that I submerged myself in.
You’re the road that I recklessly drove through.
You’re the toxins I inhaled without any safety precautions.
Now...? You’re a white rolled paper between my lips.
Soon, you’ll be the ecstasy I take tonight.

Is this a good choice?
I guess we’ll never know.

A syringe leaves holes in my vein,
But I know...
If you told me you were to be cold, I’d knit my veins in with your favorite color of wool to keep you warm,
Burning up the world we both hate. I’d make sure the ashes keep you warm if my sweater were not enough.

I know...
If you were to ever run out of the color red,
I’d let you draw out my blood on the condition that you kiss my lacerations away.

Deepest pains you’d never know.
My memories are shaken by false dreaming.
Is it the LSD, or am I checking in with reality?

I carry the troubles of those nights we spent together on my back.
At what cost, you ask? My soul.

Remember when we used to have those midnight walks at the stadium? I would see you from the sideline, take a seat, and trace the lines your body made under the floodlights. It used to make me feel euphoric. In the tram, the streetlights and the incandescent bulbs at the old cafe on the corner of the old city turned us into different shades of blue and red. Sometimes the light wouldn’t shine on our situation. For so long, it felt like we didn’t exist—but we did, right? You are not my helper, you see. My sleep is deep, but I am awake... with your thoughts.

Maybe somewhere in those infinite universes, there’s one where I deserve you without any pain. Perhaps there’s a universe out there, happening now, where we end up together. When I close my eyes at night, I’m not dreaming like a normal person. Instead, I’m seeing flashes of our lives in the multiverse—our kids, our garden, our kitchen, our basement, and our bed. They’re not simple dreams because I miss you, you know?

Maybe there’s a universe without all the noise in my head. This city is getting cold without your presence. A star among the stars, a speck of gold dust on winter’s velvet—that’s what you are. And now, there is you and there is me; that’s why the world has disappeared.

Am I drifting within the clouds again, or am I checking into reality?I guess we'll never know.