FESTIVAL IS A STATE OF MIND

• Author’s Note: The feeling of slowly losing the buzz of those butterflies, that craze which one felt in their bones for someone or something is the base of this short write-up. It’s something I’ve been struggling with the past few weeks. This in no way means I’ve lost the magic which grounded me in their gravitational space but I feel the pull to be lacking. Maybe this is how time works, the force field settles. It becomes less ‘electrifying’ and I’m just thinking too much? Or is this something else? I’m struggling to make sense and truth be told it scares the fuck out of me because I’m in no way ready to let go.
• Note: The phrases in bold are song lyrics the details for which are at the end.

From all the memories stored in my heart

I gather up the ones of you, linking them together,

Gazing at them as they project across the room

That summer air, thick with humidity and a sense of despair,

Dusty dreams locked inside an old chest drummed with musty air.

Moonlight, my only companion during unremitting nights.

Snotty nose, sparkling eyes inhabiting pearls on the lash line.

Sunken shadow tethering on the ledge, looking up at the stars too far out of reach.

Like a moon hanging in the sky at midday.

You (were) the sun that rose again in my life,

If I had been alone, if I had not known you I would have given up the hold on that ledge all those years ago.

A sound of something breaking leaves me feeling agitated.

Striving to retrace my steps, I try to throw myself in that now frozen lake, again.

Have I lost myself?

Or have I lost the essence of us?

The words that you whispered

Their echos wander aimlessly around the room, still

I’ll be holding onto that fragrance, that warmth as long as it lasts.

The flow of time is ruthless,

Please don’t take away the name that only you know

I don’t need magic (anymore)

Just, [stay] here.

I’ve come to believe that a festival is nothing more than a state of mind.

Standing atop the pieces of the now crumbled ledge, I bask in your luminescence for eternity.

Your touch still braves un-hackneyed: is it perhaps a chimera?

Festival is after all a state of mind.

I feel you are (still) a heartbeat away

Please don’t ever wake (me) up from this dream.

Eventually, someday, spring will come,

and the ice will melt and flow away

I’ll be here gazing at our memories spread across the room: my cardinal state of mind.

This is the grandest festival.

After all festival is but a state of mind and I’m drowning under the bloom of lost nostalgia till I take back what is rightfully mine.

Credits: Doolset Translations

(Songs mentioned in bold are Film Out, Heartbeat, Euphoria, Don’t (Aeon ft. RM), Singularity, Spring Day and Inner Child from BTS).