I just wanted to be alive.
After all, you were sunlight
and my eyes were still tired
from just waking up.
I am waiting for time to
catch up with the weather.
3 AM used to feel so much warmer.
I see stars and think about
the patterns that run through
your skin,
the constellations that run through
your veins.
I will never have a chance
to trace them all,
but my God,
they are beautiful.

She didn't want spring,
she wanted autumn.
She wanted
the butterscotch leaves
snuggling the curbs
and porky pumpkins
with fire for a heart.

She wanted autumn
even when underground,
where seasons are unseen
except in the snow
sprinkled in a man's hair,
or heard, a sneeze and a sniffle
into a flimsy tissue.

She wanted autumn back,
like a first kiss over again,
like a childhood memory
flipped to the front of her mind
to stay there,
a vicious, intense red.

But she was stuck in spring,
writing about Octobers,
what happened back then,
how it opened like a flower,
and whether come next year
the season will breathe

orange again.