and i don't know what to feel

I used to dream almost every night - in full colour. My dreams were so vivid I could mistake they're real (if only I didn't know better). I knew the face so well - memorised its features like my own. I recognised the deep voice so well - heard it so clearly as if it's amplified by digital surround sound. I felt every touch, savoured every smile, recorded every laugh. I knew all the details - I held on to them like dear life.

Last night I dreamt again. But unlike before, this time the face was a blur - almost covered by blinding white light - distorted. I could see a smile, I could feel a touch. But they felt cold and unreal. They felt like pigments of, well, a dream. For the first time in years, they felt like what they REALLY are - mirage. The face I knew so well turned into someone unfamiliar - it has change in ways I cannot grasp, cannot pinpoint.

Like the four-line poetry, the blue card, the doodles, the songs and the funny images on camera - I still remember them. But not as perfectly as I did before. They are like the roses I tried to preserve by keeping in between pages of thick books. I preserved them, yeah but they still withered.

Maybe if I let you wither, all else will die and no longer haunt me.

xoxo