This Is How I Remember It

The sky was not blue, but the color of held breath, waiting for the courage to be released. Shadows leaned long across the road, as if they, too, had grown tired of carrying the day’s weight. You stood where the light met your shoulder, half in gold, half in the hush of evening, the kind of stillness that makes the world listen to itself. We spoke in glances— whole conversations folded into the quiet like paper birds no one dares to unfold. Somewhere, a wind stirred, carrying petals, or maybe time, into the spaces between us. I reached for your hand, but only memory stayed— warm and trembling, like the last note of a song you hum without knowing why. And that is how I keep it, fragile as glass, unchanged by the years, even as the road grows longer each time I return.