Where the Stars Used to Be Closer

We sit beside each other
as the sky folds itself into dusk,
the sun slipping behind the edge of the sea
like a secret too tired to keep.

You laugh.
I laugh.
And it’s real—
but it’s not the same.

There was a time
when your smile felt like discovery,
like stumbling barefoot into warm sand
after a long, aching winter.
Now it’s a familiar shore—
still beautiful,
but I no longer run to it with the same breathless need.

We’re happy.
People would call this peace.
But I miss the storm we once were,
the way we used to crash into each other
like the sea into the rocks,
unafraid of the breaking.

I wish I didn’t know
what I know now—
the quiet ways love can settle,
how joy can echo without returning.

Back then,
we were the sunrise before we opened our eyes,
all possibility and color spilling forward,
unaware of the day ahead.
I’d give anything to be that blind again.

To believe
this moment—this now—
was just as full of forever
as the first time your hand found mine
under the purple hush of a half-lit sky.

We still touch,
but not like we used to.
Not like the stars would vanish if we let go.
Not like we were afraid of the dark.

And maybe this is still love—
just softer, quieter,
like waves that no longer chase the shore
but rest against it.

But some part of me
still stands in the past,
still watching us in our brightest hour,
still whispering,
Don’t move. Don’t learn. Don’t change.
Because once, we knew nothing,
and it felt like everything.

Now we know too much.
And it’s not wrong.
It’s just not what it was.