The days stretch forever, each one a desert I crawl through, and yet they vanish the moment I let myself sink into her in my head. In thought, I can touch her, claim her, twist myself into whatever shape might make her stay. In thought, she’s mine. In reality, she’s a silhouette on the horizon—untouchable, untamed. The distance between us is a wound I keep pressing on, just to feel something. The nights are worse. Long, hollow corridors where sleep never comes easy. I lie awake inventing versions of myself—versions she might actually want. Stronger, smoother, less pathetic. I let the fantasy run wild: her in my arms, her breath against mine, her choosing me in the dark. But it’s delusion, I know it. When morning comes, I wake to nothing but the ache of absence, and the taste of someone I’ve never really had. And then—there are the evenings. Brief, brutal, intoxicating. She appears, and the world sharpens. Loneliness folds itself quiet for a while. Her presence fills the cracks I’ve been bleeding through all day, makes me believe in something reckless, dangerous, impossible. For a flicker of time, she is there. Close enough to touch, close enough to ruin me. And then, as night falls, she’s gone again, and I’m left clawing at shadows, drunk on a hit I’ll never have enough of. It’s madness, and maybe I like it that way. Maybe I need the jagged edges, the torn-up nights, the delusion that somewhere between thought and reality, she might one day stay.