It's a somber feeling
when the winds of autumn come slipping through the gaps
under your front door.
They sneak in, like the smell of unsharpened pencils,
and slip on like new jeans bought for the new year.
It is during autumn
that life truly starts again.
Summer's sleepless nights
give way to the October winds
that make you twirl and dance in your kitchen
with windows wide open.
It roses your cheeks with the mornings of November,
warms your soul with the mouthfuls of coffee
on the August nights when your books have not yet been creased.
And as your highlight the texts
and the memories of friends' faces lit by orange fires,
remember that autumn is your season of purpose;
Its winds promise the turning of new leaves;
its day promise new adventures,
And its chill will rattle your bones
and awaken the sleeping siren
that summer always leaves forgotten.

But lately,
I've been falling like rain,
collectively puddling at the edges of your rain boots,
splash,
your boots bright red
like my cheeks the first time we impromptu'd to the beach
because we didn't have anything better to do,
and everyone forgot us anyway.
My pants were, peach,
or maybe coral,
but rolled up enough to see the sharped edges of my ankles,
because it was what I could afford to give you,
I had lost those trimmings long ago to the world,
even though it never gave me any of my pieces back,
and speaking of,
I still have white pieces of sand in my pockets,
and maybe if I poured them out on your floor,
we could have had a beach of our very own.
And I could roll down those pants,  you could change into your teal shirt,
and we might have sunbathed
in our own warmth,
glowing yellow and bright
like those little specks in your eyes
nobody ever notices,
but I knew they were there.
That's what happens when you pay attention to the details of people,
You find in them colors that are too hard to name,
but
if you have a color wheel and a pen, you can find out what they're called, and even if you can't,
you can make up your own as you go along, like;
Greasy-pizza-stain-from-the-little-shack-on-the-water-red,
and light-2009-Pontiac-G6-that-got-you-to-the-beach-when-you-had-no-p­lace-else-to-go-grayish-blue.
You can even almost mix these
colors into paint,
and hand them out in pamphlets to all of your friends and family;
"Here's the shade of green
the leaves were on the tree she sat on with me."
"This is the shade of pink
her lips were when she said 'I love you.'"
"And here's the shade of red
I saw when I heard her say goodbye."

When did you stop loving me, he asked.
When you started noticing, she said.

Give her chance. Meet her for coffee. You'll never know if you like the way her shampoo smells, or the way her nose crooks slightly to the left unless you put down $2.25 for a cup of burnt mouth and laughter so loud that the entire cafe wonders what kind of nerve you two have.  

You'll never know if you prefer her hands draped over your arms, or mine wrapped around your cheeks. While discussing spider legs and thigh gaps, the dead, the dying and the decay of classic rock, you might find that you like the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, but hate the way she inhales through her mouth and sighs with the flits of her eyelashes.

Maybe she's the Wednesday obituary. Maybe she's the Sunday paper with all the colored funnies your inner ten year old desires.

Maybe she's your glass of wine. Maybe she's your shot of whiskey. Or maybe she'll flow through your body like ice water. You've never been one for alcohol anyway.

Give her a chance. Meet her for coffee. Watch how her *** moves in her jeans. See the gleam of her little chiclet teeth when she smiles.

But don't think about me. Don't remember the way my hips curve. Don't think bow of my lips or the Cupid's arrow that once punched you so hard in the mouth that you smiled for an entire year of your life. Don't put that white paper cup to your lips and pretend that your tasting the way words dance around my tongue.

Go out and love someone. Love them for their mountains and valleys. Love them through their stormy nights and sunny mornings. Love them like you run. Full force, breathless, exhausted to the point of happiness. Chase after them until your lungs and legs give out. Just don't give up, and don't give in. And don't forget that I loved you first, but you loved me most. No matter where your feet or heart take you, that will never change.

Coming of Age

I spent two days with you in a bed made ***** by breakfast crumbs and tears and sweat from last night relearning the way your body contours when it sleeps.
I know I was getting too close, but nobody gives a **** about what you do on your birthday.
I had forgotten what it was like to be yours. You picked words like apples from the high round bits of my face with your teeth tucked behind your lips. Crisp and sweet like we thought it wouldn't be.
I know that every good day has it core. Even the peach of your mouth has its pit, but our roots run deeper, freer, from orchard blocks and white picket fences.
We planted seeds even though the soil was rocky and dry. Like vines, we intertwined, even though our souls are parched and tired.
I'm turning green, like the sunflower stems on my dusty window sill.
Your evergreen isn't planted in my yard, but your roots run in it.
Yesterday was hard for all of us,
but tomorrow promises rain to wash us clean.
They say to never plant before a rain because the water will sweep the seeds away. Carry them into the next garden, next county, next life
but if you're too ******* afraid to start again once everything's been flooded, you're never gonna grow.

Nothing broke my heart quite like that time I read what you wrote to her.

It was from two years ago, but it still managed to strike quick like a bullet, even though the barrel was dusty.

If history repeats itself, then I'm the same lips you craved on different person.
You said so yourself. You can't breath new life into old love. Your lungs will collapse before hers start.

You've never been good with words, but I didn't know you weren't good with laundry.

Your words were still wet with her tears before you gave them to me.

You should have left them on the line a bit longer. Maybe the lye of their syllables wouldn't burn my face when I try to bury it in your shirt.

Do you realize what you say when you scream I ******* love you from your rooftop?

Who's ears will they reach first, hers or mine? Because where I hear a promise, she hears and echo as bitter as the wind on that rooftop.

That's why my hips curve in all the question marks I could never ask you.

In two years, will you mail someone else the screams from your piece of sky?
Will your heart still beat in time to that ******* song that you always play when we're in your car?

I'm tired of seeing blood under my fingernails because metaphors and ethers and ink marks can't stitch you up fast enough.

You need patience, but all I can give you are poems about winter, and the spring grasses that follow, no matter what.

You need guidance, but I give you comparisons of how the moon moves the sea, but gets jealous when she kisses the shore.

You need love, but I offer you poems that flow like water and taste like someone else's mouth.

My river songs can't fill the canyons she's left in you.

He kissed me like he was afraid of my mouth. He knew of the knife I kept hidden between my teeth, but he didn't know I only use it when my voice gets loud and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.

I can hear my heartbeat now, but that's only because my hands are palm up next to my face as I lay back on the bed. I stare at him, left eye, right eye, and back again, but I can't tell which one is lying, or if they're even lying at all.

It's funny how someone can look at you and make you think back to the time you were seventeen and freezing in the back seat of a sedan because you knew how to take your clothes off, but you forgot how to keep yourself warm.

But you're not seventeen, and this isn't January, and you don't have to wonder if his finger tips want to keep you or if they just want to see how long they can stay on your ribcage without getting burned.

Either way, he kisses you again on the mouth, and once on the cheek, but not on your collarbone because he isn't sure if it's his to take or not.

And for some reason, you fall in love with him. Not for his lips, his fingertips, or his breath on your skin, but just because you want to belong to someone for a little while.

You want to let him think that he can map your caverns and carve initials in the mountains of your spine and maybe even let him believe that he's at home in the sea waters that stand between you, not knowing how deep they really are.

"I can swim," he says.

"But can you drown?" I ask.