You were a season I couldn’t keep,
a moment carved in sunlight,
fading as the earth turned.
Yet, even now,
when the echoes of your name
have settled into quiet,
you remain, not as longing,
but as a breath I hold
when the world feels too loud.

It isn’t you I ache for,
but the colors you brought—
soft golds of laughter,
stormy grays of understanding,
the blue of your quiet courage
painting the edges of my days.

When I stand in someone else’s orbit,
a different warmth touching my face,
you’re not a shadow between us
but a constellation far away,
a map of where I’ve been,
not where I’m going.

I love you still,
not as the dream I once wove,
but as the truth I found in knowing you—
the way you reminded me
to believe in kindness,
to carry hope like a torch
even when the wind howled.

Forever isn’t a chain;
it’s the way I smile
when a song catches me unaware,
the way the scent of rain
carries me back to your laughter,
the way I see pieces of you
in the courage of strangers.

You are not my forever love,
but you are my forever lesson,
a memory that walks beside me,
not in longing, but in gratitude.