08/10/2025
💛
I never really thought much about yellow.
It always felt too bright, too loud,
like it belonged to people who never had to learn
how to walk carefully through their own shadows.
I used to choose darker colors,
the ones that stayed quiet,
the ones that didn’t ask to be seen.
Because being unseen felt safer
than being misunderstood.
I remember you asking me what color of shirt I think I’d never wear.
I said yellow.
It was too bright, too attention-grabbing, too happy.
I told you it felt like being dragged into a party I didn’t want to attend,
a place where I didn’t belong.
The next day, there was a small note on my desk,
“Have a nice day,”
written on a piece of yellow paper.
I didn’t notice the color at first.
Not until later,
when I realized maybe you chose it on purpose.
You never said why,
but I think I get it now.
You were teaching me something
without saying it out loud,
that I could learn to love the things
I once turned away from,
including myself,
and the small joys I keep pressing down
because I never thought I deserved to celebrate them.
Maybe it’s not that I don’t want happiness.
Maybe I just never learned
how to hold it without fear.
Like if I let it in,
it would take everything I fought for just to stay afloat,
that it might take away all the strength
I built just to survive.
And then you came along,
quiet but certain,
a quiet kind of happiness I didn’t have to be afraid of.
You came softly, like light finding its way through a closed room,
and suddenly, your presence felt like morning,
not the kind that bursts through the window,
but the kind that seeps in slowly,
gently convincing me
that maybe the night has done its part.
You made me laugh so easily.
You listened without trying to fix me.
You said my name
like it was something soft again.
And before I knew it,
I had yellow shirts in my drawer,
yellow post-its pinned to my board,
and yellow catching my eye
whenever I wanted to buy something for myself.
But like any morning,
I lost you too.
Perhaps yellow was never mine to keep,
only something I was meant to feel.
Because it reminds me of my happiest days,
the days when I forgot to guard my joy,
the days when I let myself be light.
Because it reminds me of you.
I still wear the yellow shirt you gave me.
And I think of you always, too.
Yellow doesn’t hurt anymore,
but it still hums your name in quiet ways,
in the sunlight slipping through the curtains,
in laughter I didn’t expect to have again.
And if you’re reading this,
thank you,
for bringing yellow to me,
for bringing you to me.
And as much as it hurts,
I’d like to think our goodbye is yellow too,
because it means there are brighter days ahead,
and somewhere in them,
I’ll finally be okay, and I hope you will be too.
