I think of you still,
not as a person anymore
but as a season,
the kind that lingers
long after the leaves have fallen.

The kind that arrives quietly,  
carrying too much beauty  
and too much sorrow  
to stay for long.  

You were autumn to me,  
a slow burning symphony of decay,  
the kind of fire that doesn’t scorch  
but cradles the earth in amber light,  
turning everything it touches  
into something aching,  
something holy.  

You were the air in October,  
sharp with the bite of dying things,  
but sweet in the way only endings can be.  
You were trees shedding their grief,  
each leaf a farewell,  
whirling like a thousand paper prayers  
that never quite reached heaven.  

You were the sky at twilight,  
bruised and bleeding orange,  
the sun clinging desperately to the horizon,  
begging for just one more moment  
before the dark.  

You were the ground beneath my feet,  
soft with surrender,  
the earth folding itself inward,  
readying for silence.  
Every step felt fragile,  
as if I might break the world  
just by moving through it.  

You were the way the wind spoke,  
low and mournful,  
dragging whispers of yesterday  
through fields of brittle gold.  
You were the taste of apples  
just past their prime,
sweet at first bite,  
but bitter by the core.  

You were a season that demanded to be felt,  
not just seen,  
wrapping the world in a kind of beauty  
that stung to hold.  
And I tried,
God, I tried,
to gather you in my arms,  
to press you between the pages of me,  
but you were already dissolving,  
slipping through my fingers  
like smoke from a devastating fire.

You were autumn to me,  
a hymn to impermanence,  
a lover who kissed me  
only to leave the taste of endings  
on my lips.  
And still, I loved you,
because how could I not?  
How could anyone not love  
something that dies  
so beautifully?