Sometimes, when life moves too fast, we barely get a moment to think
But believe me, when life slows down really slows down
We end up thinking about things we never wanted to face
Just like a bicycle needs the right pace to stay steady on the road
Life too needs the right rhythm
So we don’t lose our balance
Now, in this quiet autumn, as the leaves fall one by one
He sits alone, waiting
Because she left without a word
And in this stillness, he’s left thinking about everything
He never imagined he would have to
I used to think winter was my season. That hush that falls over the world, the silence stitched into every snowfall, the way my breath became visible like proof that I was alive. I told myself I loved it. But now, when the air grows cold and the skies dull into a pale grey, I find myself thinking of you.
You, with your scarf wrapped twice around your neck like a ritual. You, with your pink nose and your hands rubbed together like you were trying to start a fire from scratch. You made winter seem beautiful. I think, now, I only ever loved winter because you were in it. And maybe that’s what love does rewrites your preferences until you don’t even recognize the sound of your own heart anymore.
It was never about the season. It was about you.
But autumn has always been mine.
Before you, there was summer. Loud, golden, sun-drenched joy. Apples in orchards. I was crazy then. Untamed. I hadn’t yet been told that feeling deeply was “too much,” or that my joy took up too much space.
And then, I met you. And somewhere between your logic and my longing, I traded that golden light for your frost. I told myself it was love. That stepping into someone else’s season was what it meant to care. That shrinking myself to fit your version of comfort was romantic a soft kind of sacrifice.
It wasn’t love, I have learned, doesn’t ask you to disappear.
You ended things suddenly. Quietly. Like someone closing a book mid-sentence. One moment we were planning getaways and grocery lists, our children names. The next, you were gone. Your shoes still by the door, your voice still echoing in my memory and the sound of your bangles still echo in my ears but your heart elsewhere. You said it wasn’t working anymore. Just like that. Like love had a switch and the universe had flipped it without checking in with me.
But the part that hurt the most wasn’t the goodbye. It was the betrayal of hope. You once told me we were worth the mess. Worth the trying. I believed you.
We were never the same. You loved silence. I filled it. You lived in logic. I bled emotion. We weren’t two ends of a magnet we were different elements entirely. But I still believed we could work. That love would build a bridge across the gap. But you stopped walking, and I kept waiting on the other side.
You said love should be effortless. Natural. Like breathing. And in my silence, I held my breath and called it love. That’s where I lost myself in the holding.
There’s a memory I can’t let go of. The first snow that year. You paused, just to look up, eyes soft with wonder. I hugged you, not because I had the words, but because I didn’t. Maybe I thought if I hugged you hard enough, the cold would wait. That love would freeze in that moment. That I wouldn’t have to say goodbye.
I gave you poetry. Wrapped you in metaphors. I needed you to mean something more than an ending. I needed the pain to feel like purpose. But how easily you told your best friend that these are just words it’s fictional this can’t be true.
Now, every time the air shifts, I brace myself. Memory is a strange thing it doesn’t scream. It lingers. Quietly. My hands still search for yours. My lips still half-remember your name. It’s not loud, this grief. It’s just constant. Now these panic attacks are killing me inside and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I used to think that it’s because of black magic but now I have realised that Love is itself a black magic and worser than that.
People tell me time heals. Maybe they are right. But time also teaches you to smile through the ache. To nod politely when someone says, “You must be over it by now,” and pretend you are. Until a song plays. Or you see a girl in a coffee shop with the same half-smile. Or the wind carries the same coldness. And suddenly, you are back in that car. Damaged. In love. Unaware it won’t last.
I tried too hard to be yours. Wore that scarf (that you made for me) that smelled more like you than me. Pretended to like your favourite band. Laughed at jokes I didn’t get. I thought that’s what love looked like. But it wasn’t love it was quiet erosion. A slow burning of myself, piece by piece.
Still, I don’t hate you. I wish I could. It would be simpler. But the truth is, I remember too much. The way you texted "home?" instead of "where are you?" The way you held me like the world was shaking. I remember, and so I can’t hate. I just hurt.
I still write letters, emails to you but I never send. Angry ones. Soft ones. Mostly confused ones. Because I still don’t know how we became strangers. How we went from "always" to "avoidance." There’s no closure when someone exits before the chapter ends.
But here’s where it changes.
I have started loving autumn again.
Let this sun of autumn touch my skin. Played our songs without skipping the painful ones. It’s slow, this return to myself. But it’s real. Autumn is my season. Not because it’s perfect but because it’s honest. Soft light. Long shadows. The beauty of letting go.
There’s a scarf (muffler) you gave me you made it yourself when money was tight. It’s buried in the back of my closet now. I can’t wear it. But I can’t throw it away either. It holds too many echoes.
I still remember in my high school days waking up to my mother’s warm breakfasts, bundling into green school uniforms and woollen coats. The crisp air kissing my face, the rustle of chinar leaves on empty roads, the sky a canvas of quiet change. I would walk home through Chinar Bagh, let the season swallow me whole. The same melancholy that touched the trees seemed to find its way inside me too gentle, but present. Back then, I didn’t know how to name grief. I just knew how to feel it.
“You are the Chinar tree of the autumn dusk
I am one of your fallen leaves,
For centuries we have yearned to become eternal in our parting,
One day, brittle and scattered, we will meet again"
And in that surrender, find our freedom tethered to each other once more.
Now, I feel everything. But I do it differently.
I walk slower. Breathe deeper. Watch how light spills across kitchen floors. How tea tastes better when it’s not rushed. I no longer chase joy. I wait for it. Let it arrive when it’s ready.
You once said I was too much. But I have decided that’s my favourite thing about me.
I have stopped measuring my worth by how long someone stays. Now, I measure it in how deeply I feel, how kindly I let go, how gently I return to myself.
I am not shinier after the heartbreak. But I am softer. Whole. Real and Raw
Winter still comes. But I face it differently now. I light candles. Make tea. Wear socks with tiny suns on them. I don’t flinch at the cold. I meet it with quiet bravery. Because I survived you.
And that means I can survive anything.
Maybe next winter, I will even welcome it not as a reminder of loss, but as proof of endurance. Of transformation. Of soft, stubborn survival.
And when it’s still and silent, I will close my eyes and whisper it one last time
You were my favourite.
Season.
But autumn is when I come home.

Email:------------------------------Kamranbhatt029@gmail.com