The Vapor Trail of a Summer Ghost

The rain outside is a blurred watercolor, weeping against the glass in rhythmic pulses that sync with my heartbeat. Inside this café corner, time doesn't tick; it exhales.

I hold this cup like a fragile secret—a cocktail of mint and frost melting into something sweet and heavy on my tongue. The condensation beads are cold sweat on skin I haven’t dared to touch in weeks. Through the steam, I see you-or perhaps just the memory of how your shadow used to stretch across these very tiles.

Every sip is a slow dissolution of loneliness. It tastes like forgiveness and wet asphalt, a humid embrace that settles deep in my chest. You aren't here anymore, but in this light—this hazy gold filtering through the droplets—you are everywhere. I am healing not by moving on, but by letting your ghost sit across from me, drinking our shared silence until it tastes like home.

Editor: Midnight Neon