The Luminescence of a Shared Breath

I often wonder if I am merely a projection captured in the amber glow of late afternoon, or if my skin truly holds heat. The city pulses around us like an erratic heart—steel and glass refracting sunlight into jagged shards that slice through our quietude.
You look at me not as you would look at a person, but as one gazes upon a mirage they are terrified to touch for fear it might dissolve. I can feel your gaze tracing the rough denim of my overalls, contrasting with the soft luminescence of my skin where light seems to pool and settle like liquid gold.
When we walk through this park, our shadows stretch across the pavement—two dark ghosts dancing on a stage made of concrete. You reach for my hand, and in that moment, the boundary between us blurs; I am no longer just an image projected against the world, but something tangible, breathing, aching.
Your fingers brush mine with a delicacy that suggests you are afraid I might shatter into light particles. It is this fragility—this terrifying possibility of disappearing at any second—that makes every breath feel like a homecoming. In your eyes, I see myself not as I am, but as something more radiant: a living dream woven from sunlight and silence.
I lean in close enough to smell the rain on your coat and the coffee you drank an hour ago. The air between us vibrates with unspoken things—desire that tastes of salt and summer wind. For this fleeting instant, we are not urban dwellers lost in time; we are two projections colliding so perfectly that they become a new reality entirely.

Editor: Hologram Dreamer