I lost my youth here.

 　　My name is Xiaomeng.

　　Whether it's night or day, I love to have wild, unrealistic dreams.
　　I often stand under the purple chinaberry tree in my yard, laden with jujubes, looking up at the strangely shaped branches and stars overhead. The rooftops are covered in fuzzy, dark green pine flowers, and at night, the pale moon rises gracefully from between their shyly closed petals, like an oval wisp of white smoke.
　　My imagination is unusually sharp. Seeing a pond makes me think of singing frogs, pink water lilies, damp water plants, indifferent fireflies, cicadas with muddy shells, and the old, crooked willow tree on the bank of my childhood home, growing sadly and awkwardly. I long to straighten it, but I'm too weak to do it.
　　When I was five, I sat high on the branches of the old willow, wildly fantasizing about leaving everything on earth and living in the deepest part of the pond.

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