Love in the Time of Banned Books #12 | "Gold Days" by Ruby Seidner

Art by Rajveer Parekh

Introduction by Rishi Janakiraman

"Gold Days" by Ruby Seidner

---

"Whirlpool Simulation" by Rajveer Parekh

---

Introduction

In Ruby Seidner’s Gold Days, the tender, secretive nature of queer love is rendered with a quiet elegance—the kind of love that flourishes in the margins, out of view of a world that insists on making rules. Opening with “Blue eyes / Dark smiles,” Seidner captures the kind of gaze that queer lovers know too well: a look that says everything without speaking, a moment spatiotemporally suspended, far removed from expectations. Beneath the shade of a tree, two characters laugh, their hands interlaced—caught in the perfect simplicity of each other’s company, not yet touched by the weight of society’s gaze. It’s the kind of joy that feels like an act of defiance, a love so pure it doesn’t even need to be named.

But as Gold Days quickly reminds us, queerness does not exist in a vacuum. The “footsteps” that intrude on this otherwise idyllic scene force the lovers to “pretend to be something we were not,” an all-too-familiar refrain for anyone who’s tiptoed between self-expression and self-preservation. The oak tree becomes a refuge—a shelter for a love that can only be fully realized in spaces where it is allowed to breathe freely, away from prying eyes. This moment of forced pretense captures the reality of queer existence: the constant negotiation between authenticity and concealment, between the love we long to express and the fear of the world that might reject it.

Yet it’s here, in this tension between the world’s constraints and the lovers’ desire for freedom, that Seidner’s poem makes its most powerful statement. “Our relationship was perfect / It was the world that was broken,” the poem declares, and in those words, Gold Days becomes a subtle but firm rebuke to any world that demands queerness be hidden or ashamed. By the time the poem closes, there’s a gentle, almost wistful recognition that queerness, in all its forms, is often misunderstood, yet still powerful. Gold Days is a celebration of the love that doesn’t fit into societal categories, that doesn’t need to be understood in conventional terms. It is, as much as it is a tribute to those precious stolen moments, a statement on the persistence of queer love—a love that, despite the world’s best efforts, can never be broken.

---

"Gold Days"

by Ruby Seidner

Blue eyes 

Dark smiles 

The feeling of your gaze on mine 

I never knew that I could feel this way about somebody

Those days sitting behind that strong dark oak tree

with its long hanging branches. 

Nothing but eyes, yours and mine 

Hands interlaced 

We would sit and laugh till our stomachs 

were numb and our cheeks flushed pink 

I felt like I could stay there all day 

But then footsteps creep up behind us. 

Acidic shivers rushing up our spines. 

The world is closing in. 

We have to pretend to be something we were not

And as that moment hangs on the precipice,

I want to tell you dear love 

That even though we had to hide 

Our relationship was perfect 

It was the world that was broken

---

About "Love in the Time of Banned Books"

In this series, we seek to celebrate LGBTQ+ identities and experiences, while critically examining book bans and how they impact the LGBTQ+ community.

If you would like to support Polyphony Lit and our efforts to make literary opportunities accessible to high school students worldwide, then please follow the link below to donate.