The Boy With Autumn in His Hair

We were boys once,

barely more than whispers in the world’s noise,

stitched together by the soft hum of a classroom

and the secret codes of youth.

You—

all wildfire and pencil-drawn dreams,

a canvas of autumn and sky,

an artist’s soul painted on the walls of my life.

And me—

a shadow with too many sharp edges,

aching to be brave enough to stand in your light.

We built something unspoken,

a bond forged in late-night truths

and the reckless dares of teenagers

too afraid to name what we wanted.

I remember that night—

truth or dare in the dark,

the air electric with everything unsaid.

I could have leaned closer.

I should have.

But I didn’t.

Your orbit shifted,

and I was left behind—

the jealous moon,

watching you light up other skies.

I tried to hold on,

but you belonged to a world

that moved too fast for me.

I became the boy

who smiled in your photos

but broke in your absence.

Still, you stayed with me,

even in fragments.

The memory of your laugh—

a map to the places I couldn’t reach.

The way you drove that night,

the road stretching like eternity,

your silence beside me louder than words.

I wanted to tell you everything.

Instead, I just let the music play.

And then the years swallowed us whole.

We became ghosts,

drifting through each other’s lives,

our connection thin as smoke.

I saw you once,

older but the same,

your hair still burning with the fire

I used to dream about.

You smiled, and for a moment,

I was sixteen again—

a boy on the edge of something

he would never understand.

When we left,

I drove with tears blurring the road,

stopping at a green light just to watch

your car fade into the distance.

Even then, I couldn’t stop you.

There’s something cruel about time—

how it erodes what matters,

how it leaves you with memories

sharp as broken glass,

how it lets you love someone

but never quite lets you tell them.

You’ll never know the weight

I carried all these years.

You’ll never know

what it meant to be near you,

even just for a night,

even just for a memory

I’ll keep writing and rewriting

until it’s perfect enough to hold.

Because in another life,

I kissed you in Wildwood.

In another life,

I told you everything in that car.

In this life,

I just let you drive away.