Moon at Half Past Noon

Okay. So I found this boy in a comic book.
Well, his handwriting.
Pencil ghosts in the gutters of Tintin.
It felt realer than my group chat.

Screenshot. Send. Found a ghost lol.
Ananya: 😱
Riya: deep
Scrolled past in seven seconds.
Deleted.

My life is a show I’m writing.
Also directing. Also bored of.
Cast:
Mom (tired, but in a good sari).
Dad (phone-face, gifts as apologies).
Me (the star. mood: pending).

Plot: Get marks. Be happy. Don’t ask why.
Set: My room, a museum of almost.
A ukulele missing five strings.
A bullet journal, last entry: Jan 3.
Glitter nail polish, sealed shut.
My real room is in my phone.
It’s always rearranging.

I have everything.
I have these hollow bones that hum.
Mom says, No focus.
She’s right. My mind is a bee
in a locked car. Buzzing against
Instagram, then Snapchat, then nothing.
One minute: I’ll change the world.
Next: watching nail art videos
for a party I decided not to go to.

The boy, Darvish, wrote about a cold
that wouldn’t melt in his flat.
I get that.
My cold is the AC in Phoenix Mall
blowing over new clothes no one sees.
It’s the chill when the Wi-Fi dies
during a VC with cousins abroad.
It’s the perfect, icy filter on a selfie
that still looks… vacant.

I say I’m stressed.
Mom buys me a new phone case.
Think positive, beta.
I say I’m sad.
Friends send puppy reels.
It works. For three minutes.

Then the hollow is back.
A quiet so big it fills my Spotify Wrapped,
my Netflix Continue Watching,
my Insta explore page.
It hums under the latest dance trend.

So, Darvish-from-1989,
I’m writing this in Notes
while my BYJU’S class drones in another tab.
My happiness is real. My drama is real too.
I cried last week just to feel my heart beat.
Is that stupid? Probably.
But it’s true.

You turned your life into equations.
I turn mine into content.
Same thing.
We’re both solving for X,
where X is the thing missing
when you have all the answers
except the one that makes you stop scrolling.

I don’t know if you can hear this.
I’m a girl in 2025,
in a room full of charging cables,
talking to a pencil smudge.
It’s the truest conversation I’ve had all month.

I’ll probably delete this.
But for now, I’m pressing save.
Not sending. Just saving.
A message in a bottle
thrown into the Li-Fi waves,
hoping a ghost
has signal.