Angelina Nguyen

everything you love will leave, but not forever by Angelina Nguyen

it isn’t the color burning through the trees,

or the crisp air that folds itself around you in the morning.

it isn’t the cinnamon on your tongue,

or the way the light slides lower across the floor.

it’s the silence that arrives

after everything has tried so hard to grow.

it’s the feeling that the world, for once,

has given itself permission to rest.

to release, to crumble, to breathe.

and then

leaves falling,

twisting, twirling

like memories

that no longer

need to be carried,

drifting through the air,

turning over themselves,

as if learning how to let go.

each one lands softly,

as if the ground has been waiting

all year to catch them.

the soil sighs when they arrive,

a reunion of what once reached for the sun.

a lesson written in the motion of decay:

that beauty does not end; it only changes form.

it becomes part of something wider, deeper.

a quiet promise of return,

the world learning to start again.

and when the light begins to fade through the trees,

in the hush of autumn,

you can almost hear the whisper of it:

everything you love will leave,

but not forever.