Fall blows in like a cold breeze
Sends shivers down my spine,
Makes me weak in the knees.
I want to jump into every pile of leaves
Throw them up and set the sky on fire.

For once I am not scared
To watch the world die.
If for just this moment
I saw its true colors.

Yellow. Red. Orange.
Green. Sometimes Brown.
Vibrant and dying,
Spewing colors into sky
As if its dying breath
Was an exhale of self -
Releasing all that is not necessary
Right here, right now.

I'm starting to believe that there are reasons for the seasons.
Bone-chilling nights where my breath turns to ice,
Warm summer sun and spotless skies.

If fall is the season where eveything dies,
Why do I feel so alive?

you are always gone
as soon as you come

you are breath
the first and the last

in and out
rise and fall

try as i may
i cannot hold you

so i learn to love you
as you are

Turkey vultures perch in their trees -
On two different branches,
In two different trees
Of the same kind.
Two black dots in a pale blue sky.
Each looking past the other one
From their own vantage.
Unfamiliar to the shape
Of their own beak. They do not beckon.
No motive. They will not become
Anything out of the ordinary.
They sit and wait for life to happen,
Or rather, for it to not. Call it oppurtunity.
They flutter their wings and soar
Only towards death. When they find it,
Tearing the flesh from the bone,
Devouring the innards in ghastly gulps,
Pecking til the bones are bare
And their stomachs are full.

I recently traded my air mattress
For a big, thick, fancy one.
We had to heave it up the stairs and around the bends,
Laughing and sweating and crying the whole way.
My arms were so sore, and we were all so tired,
But I slept oh so sound.

Did you ever wonder?
When you wandered?
When the sun rose
on green pastures?
When you frolicked
through the fields?
When you laid down
and felt it on your skin?
That soft meadow,
That summer sun,
That fragrant air.

And did you ever wonder?
When you wandered?
When the leaves died and bled
all the colors of the sunset?
When you watched them fall,
slowly, to rest with the earth?
When they floated around you
and crumbled them beneath your feet?
That crunch.
That rustle.
That rot.

And did you ever wonder?
When you wandered?
When the fields froze and
the moon no longer shone?
When your breath turned to ice?
When the cold came to chatter you mouth? To shatter your bones?
When it was dark and you were alone?
I am dying to know:
When the frost came to bite you,
Did you feel it?

And do you ever wonder?
When you rub those bloodied hands on sticks and stones,
just hoping to make a spark, if it will ever catch the same?

I've never been good at hellos.
There is something heavy
In holding conversations
For weeks, or months, or years
Under the notion that some day,
Goodbye will come.

When Goodbye comes I'm never ready,
But I always try to be.
I am 10 minutes late for our date
Taking all of the wrong roads
Just hoping to throw Goodbye off my track.
I release the butterflies in my stomach
In effort to protect my delicate parts
From Goodbye. I fill their void with letters.
Like the giant chocolate ones
You got me on Valentine's day
That spelled "YOU CUTE."
Then, my biggest fear was you
Asking me to stick around. How ironic.
I take L's and the O's and the V's and the E's
And the G O O D B Y E's
Sitting so patiently on the tip of my tongue and swallow them
Unit they're so jumbled
That I forget the difference between the two.
I slur them all together, misconstrued.

You deserve better. I'm sorry.
I know it is not lovely to try to hold
Someone who is on lockdown.
I am scared of what I might catch
If I open that door.
Or worse, who I might lose.

And so I stay silent.
I pull up my mask and
Sit my back against the door
Listening to the lovely way you
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I'll pass you jumbled romance notes
Through the cracks, and you'll smile.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
But you won't understand
Knock. Knock.
How much you mean to me
Knock.
Because I will not open the door
Until you are gone.

He is five-foot-ten,
Brown hair, brown eyes
with lips that taste like playgrounds -
Something sweet and familair.

He's something to slide across.
A merry-go-round, something that I take for spins.
I'm not sure what that makes me
Besides sort of dizzy.

If I were five
(Or maybe now)
I'd glue our hands together.
Sticky and stuck and stupid.
So sticky, and stuck, and stupid.

he swallows her.

slowly, then all at once.
presses his lips to her cheeks to
watch the color bleed across her face,
like an ink blot in water
but reversed.
her creator amends his mind
and draws the color from her skin.

she was so lovely.
he imagined what could be
with colors as beauteous as these
and though she begs him not to,
he proceeds.

she screams,
and he is pleased.
he gulps them down in kisses.
drinks her last breaths down
like the finest Cabernet
that ran dry on her birthday.
her nails scratch prophecies in his back,
possess him until becomes a wolf
in the moon-like whites of her glossy eyes.
he is wild. he breaks bread and
***** the marrow from her bones.
a sweet slaughter, splendid sacrifice.
her colors dripping down his face
a perfect masterpiece.

He says I'm a catch.
I say, "Like corona?"
And laugh contagiously
But he doesn't catch it.

When I fell for him
He wasn't watching.
I just scraped my knees,
And got dirt in my blood.

Where do we go
When we are forgotten
In everyone's minds
But our own?

If I were home..

I'd find comfort in the concrete
Etchings on the front porch
Spelled by a six-year-old
With her mom's apartment keys.

I'd open the front door
Like a gust of wind
On a summer day
Just blowing through

And see you sitting there
On the couch, always on the couch
With a red blanket, a box of Cheez It's
And the game

And I wouldn't stop, or think twice.
I'd just yell "I'M HOME!"
And make my way through

The dining room,
With goofy pictures
Of you and Kel
From the fair

To the kichen,
Where I'd open all the cabinets
To the smell of dust,
Empty aside from cosmic brownies.

I'd grab a pack, and come sit next to you.
You'd grab yours too,
And light one. And it would
Glow brighter than any candle
Ever could. And that smell would
Fill me up in ways I no longer
Can feel full. And maybe I'd notice -
That your fingers were yellow as the sun.
Or maybe I'd notice the teeth still in your
Smile. But probably not. Definitely not.
If I'm honest, I wouldn't notice a thing.
And what a gift that would be.

when i tell my mom
"i have a date tonight"
she has one comment:
"whatever you do,
DON'T wear THAT
old sweater
with the geese all over
or THOSE
brown horse hoove shoes
CLANGING like the kentucky derby
with each step
those ones that the bottoms fell out of"
i sigh, wrap the phone cord around my neck
HANG it up, on the shelf
my hope, dignity, cares, whatever
LOOK, a chest
masked by geese flock
feet turned to hooves
a MATING DISPLAY
that only ever works
the lady in the mirror
when she looks
she sees the tips of mountain tops
etched in leather
is taken back to times
where the only sound
was the clank of boots on ground
        the scrape of rocks
        sun on face
where the only sound
was geese on the water
        no where else to be
        but right here, right now
where the only sound
was the ooh and aahs
         of my best friend
         with a big pearly smile
         when i dug it out
         of the giant blue bin
         at the pay-by-the-pound
         laughing while we spun
         theories of eldery ladies
         of its PAST
she mouths to me
"i like your birdleneck"
i mouth to her
"i like you"
and walk out the door

To the ghost
Who just whispered
Incoherently into my ear,
Then tugged my feet
And lit a cigarette:

Its two AM.
What the **** do you want?
Please go back to sleep.