Nothing Gold Will Last
By Kristina Uyeda
In the beginning, everything was golden.
Shining laughter, hair shimmering with summer’s flames,
skin gilded bronze.
Foamy brews of palest gold, rose kissed lips,
dancing until the blush of dawn.
But gold is soft, delicate.
It cannot last.
The years slip past, amber liquors replaced with ruby wines,
burning laughter by soft, ember smiles.
Fair hair now streaked with brilliant veins of silver.
Gone are those topaz summers,
how brightly they burned!
But how fleeting, those summer shades.
In the absence of gold rare treasures are revealed,
precious years collected like jewels on a chain.
The infinite rubies of Autumn,
pounding garnets in our chests, blood set aflame.
Eternal emeralds of our efforts, bearing gemstones of their own,
the diamonds of our legacies, outsparkling the stars.
Time has bestowed these jewels, they are everlasting.
Imprinted on the universe.
Those golden summers were indeed transcendent.
But finite.
Nothing gold will last.
Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kristina Uyeda has a BA Honours in Anthropology and Psychology. Kristina has always enjoyed fairy tales, and consequently her research and writing has focused on how we communicate cultural norms through stories and popular culture.
A lover of all things fantasy, science fiction, paranormal, and weird, she spends her days freelance proofreading and editing, writing, painting, reading, and chasing after two tireless boys who insist on Beta testing all her stories.
Kristina’s first foray into fiction writing, Frost: A Love Story, was published online in the second issue of Forget Me Not Press.
Kristina can be reached at Kristina.uyeda@gmail.com. For her artwork, see little_red_paints on Instagram.