Moon River

Last night, I dreamt of you.

We were on a road trip somewhere, no destination, no plan, just the rhythm of tires meeting the earth, and the sound of a song neither of us bothered to name. The air was warm, the windows rolled down, and for the first time in a long while, you looked free. 

I woke up with the taste of sunlight and nostalgia, the kind that lingers like the last note of a song you can’t stop replaying.

Scientifically speaking, dreams like this are called recurrent emotional imagery. When the mind misses something it can’t have, it recreates it, not to torture us, but to preserve what we fear losing.

Neuroscientists say it’s our limbic system, the emotional core of the brain, trying to reconcile love and absence. My brain, apparently, still thinks loving you is part of its survival instinct.

Because that’s what it felt like: surviving.

Even after all this time, you appear behind closed eyelids as if my subconscious refuses to believe you’re gone. I guess when the heart doesn’t get closure, the mind tries to create one, through dreams, through flashes, through scents.

And speaking of scents, I can’t smell vanilla without thinking of you. That warm, comforting trace of sweetness you once told me about. Now it follows me through bookstores and cafés, through strangers passing by. It’s cruel, how something as innocent as perfume can reopen a memory so gently. 

I’ve been missing you in strange ways lately.

Not in the dramatic kind of way but in moments. In the way I pause before turning off a song we used to share.

In the way I still remember your stories, the ones about your childhood, your dreams, and everything else. 

Maybe that’s what the dream was about. Its my mind reminding me of what it feels like when love isn’t heavy, when it’s just you and me on an endless road, unafraid, unbound.

And maybe… that’s enough for now.

Because even if the road trip never happened, even if you and I are now two parallel lines, I’m grateful my heart still remembers the sound of your laughter, and that somewhere deep in my sleeping mind,

we’re still driving.