Midnight at the Edge of August

The air still smells like heat and grass,

but something quiet has already shifted.

A coolness hides beneath the skin of the night,

as if autumn were waiting just outside the door.

August does not end with thunder.

It ends with a soft unraveling —

a loosened thread at the edge of golden days.

Laughter lingers longer, as if it, too, knows

this is borrowed time.

The crickets sing louder when the summer is dying.

The stars lean closer,

the sky a darker blue than it was in June.

Even the moon looks tired,

carrying the weight of everything unsaid.

I walk barefoot through the garden,

the earth warm but the wind colder now,

a boundary between what is fading

and what has not yet begun.

This is how endings often arrive —

disguised as another perfect evening.

A last glass of wine,

a soft hand still warm in yours,

the illusion that nothing will change.

But in the silence between breaths,

you can already hear it —

the hush of a season packing its things,

the rustle of time turning the page.

And so I stand at midnight

at the edge of August,

half in summer,

half in the ache of what is leaving.