beneath the transparent blue waves

Back then

we didn’t know the song was quiet enough

to hold a memory inside it.

We just pressed play

like high school kids do—

careless with time,

generous with afternoons,

believing closeness was permanent

because it was present.

We let the guitars drift through the room

like open windows facing the sea.

You listened beside me

as if staying was the most natural thing

in the world.

I didn’t know

I was memorizing you.

I thought

we were just listening.

Years later

the algorithm brings me a ghost—

an older version of the same song,

softer, rougher,

like it was recorded in a room

before either of us knew

how much we would need it.

And suddenly

I’m back there again.

Not in the place.

Not in the time.

Just in the feeling

of you being beside me

when the music started.

This version sounds like distance.

Like the first draft of something

that didn’t know

it would someday carry your name

inside my chest.

And I wish—

more than I expected to wish—

that I could send it to you

and say,

“Listen.

There was always another version of this song

waiting for us.”

But the song kept going

and we didn’t.

So now I sit here alone

hearing the earlier waves

of something we once shared later—

and it hurts

in the quietest possible way.

Because some discoveries

aren’t meant to be kept.

They’re meant

to be handed to someone

who isn’t there anymore.

Aesthetic Moodboards // “Hot Air Balloon” by Owl City

Aesthetic Moodboards // “Kelly Time” by Owl City

I have an ocean-worth of questions, but if I do know one thing, it's that the sun will rise tomorrow. And who knows what the tide could bring?

Aesthetic Moodboards // “Designer Skyline” by Owl City

Designer skyline in my head, abstract and still well-read, you went from numbered lines to buildings overhead.

Aesthetic Moodboards // “The Bird and the Worm” by Owl City