When the light
Was this color.

Golden hour felt longer when we were younger.

Not because it was— just because we believed beautiful things lingered.

The evenings came softened at the edges. Trees glowing from one side. Warm sidewalks. Sprinklers ticking quietly in the distance. Orange light stretched across bedroom walls like the day itself did not want to leave yet.

And somehow that light made everything feel survivable.

You beside me, half-lit in amber, felt less like a person and more like proof that life could actually become what movies promised it would.

Back then, love did not feel fragile.

It felt inevitable.

Like summer air through open windows. Like cicadas at dusk. Like shadows growing long across empty courts. Like something the world itself was naturally producing.

I think that is why it hurt so little while it was happening.

We never noticed how temporary it was. Golden hour teaches you that endings can look beautiful enough to ignore.

Now the evenings still arrive exactly the same.

The light still turns gold. The trees still soften. The world still becomes briefly beautiful.

Just not for me anymore.