Fall is less beautiful at night

When the wind is blowing and you've forgotten your jacket and there isn't enough sunlight to illuminate the colour of the leaves and finally you see the season for what it really is
A season of death.

But we try not to think about it too much.

We are the crack pipe babies,
the suburban rats that lay in fields at 2 am.
We are the children of the night,
We smoke till we can't feel the chill of October anymore.
(we smoke till we can't feel the chill of anything anymore)
We are the boys and girls with holes in our gloves and rips in our boots and parents that swear to love us for the beautiful colours we have grown into to.
But they are colours of dried blood, and rust on metal and stained teeth.
They are the red and brown and yellow of autumn leaves.

We are the Fall.
But Fall is so much less beautiful at night.

Something about literature universally connecting people
something about verses that we can identify with
something about using words in the a way that makes people feel less alone
I see people using poems as band-aids
and poets writing poetry like their last saving grace
I don't know.
Some things hurt.
Some things burn
and bruise
and fester inside of you and run in circles around your mind
until it hurts to think about it any more
it hurts to read about it any more
it hurts to write abou-
my head hurts.
It hurts to write about this any more.

I think I lost my ability to write sober and it scares me shitless
Everything I've ever wrote that's worth something has been a product of drugs
Everything that has ever rhymed
and flowed
and ebbed like the sea has been a result of alcohol
I am a cliché
All of my thoughts are the same recycled ones of the media and social influence that are only brought to surface with chemicals in my bloodstream
All of my romanticism and pain and obsessive verses are mediocre when I am not high
I am not as creative as I claim
I am a fraud
I am a fraud.

...And I've seen what it's like to have good days,
really ******* good days.
Days when things go horribly wrong and surprisingly right but you see how much your mother has sacrificed for you
and how the sky looks so ordinary but it will probably never look the exact same way as it does right now
and  the sun shines on your best friend in a way that makes you feel happy to be alive.
I am happy to be alive.
I don't know what that means in terms of progress,
But I know it's October again,
and this Thanksgiving I am able to say the words that I couldn't say last year:
**I am happy to be alive.

Good girls in rows of frilly dresses and kitten heels and pigtails
seated with black tie fathers and black eyed mothers
in the sea of hymns and Church bells.
Don't fidget with your fingers,
don't stare at people too long,
don't ask why.

Good girls in short kilts and knee high socks and dark lipstick
seated next to boys in khaki's with hands that move like serpents
in the sea of rumours and stealthy glances.
Don't kiss in the stairwell,
don't talk too loud,
don't ask why.

Good girls with black eyeliner and opened wounds and glazed eyes
seated next to nothing in particular and nothing that matters
in the sea of emptiness that's left behind when they are alone.
Don't let your smile falter,
don't stare at the black pit of your stomach,
don't ask why.

I could probably write a bunch of stanza's
With black letters and white background of metaphors and similies
I could use pretty words and figures of speech
And end with something ironic.
Or use lines that we've all heard before and try to pass it off as my own,
or write something that's all too vague.
But the truth is
All I'd really be writing about
Is the same old concept that's been written about in poetry for years
And the same feeling that's felt all across the world on a Saturday night when we are alone:
A little bored
Maybe even a little lonely
And a little desperate for a miracle.

There are always people
who will want to pretend nothing ever happened
who will want to pretend that they didn't drive nails through your wrists
and that they don't see you bleeding dry through the gaping holes
There are always people
that say they want you to go far
and they tell you that if you dig deep enough, you'll dig a hole to China
but stand above ground, throwing dirt back in like a burial service
And there are people like myself,
who forget what they're writing about half way in
who have gaping holes in their wrists that were never from a cross
and bottomless holes in the pit of their stomach
that never led to China.