Author’s Note

Sometimes the mind doesn’t separate things as cleanly as we’d like.

Memory, imagination, longing–they start to overlap. What you’ve felt in dreams can become just as vivid as something you’ve physically lived. And after a while, the line between the two doesn’t disappear… it just stops mattering in the same way.

Can’t Tell the Difference lives in the space.

It’s not about confusion in a chaotic sense–it’s about the quiet disorientation of something feeling real enough to hold weight, even if you prove it happened the way you remember.

Because emotion doesn’t always follow logic.

And sometimes the question isn’t “did this happen?”
It’s “why did it feel like it did?”

— Rowan Evans

Can’t Tell the Difference
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I stand on the edge
of what’s real—
and what isn’t.

But I can’t tell
the difference.

Is it a dream,
or a memory?

I don’t know anymore.

I’ve held your hand before.
I know I have—
there is no way,
that was just a dream.

It was too real.

I could feel
the sweat on your skin,
the heat in the air—
humidity clinging,

busy streets alive
with Jeepney beeps.

So what is real?
Is it what you’ve lived—
or what you feel?

Was it real
or a dream,
when I looked you in the eye,
and said—

I love you.

Because I felt that.

I felt the words
leave my lips—

I love you…

echoing,
like a record skipped.

Every night
in my dreams,
I meet you
on city streets.

We walk,
we talk,
hand in hand—

conversations
only I could imagine.

We talk about life,
but never the future—
just the now.

The current moment.

Because we move the same—
drifting forward,
unchained.

And still—

I stand on the edge
of what’s real,
and what isn’t.

And I can’t tell
the difference.

If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]