Hidden

What do you take me for?

A fool?

Why do you tell me things that have no truth behind them, only spiderwebs and fluorescent lightbulbs burning my retinas?

and how do you expect me to trust you again, to let you near me and touch the bare skin on the small of my back?

i know that sometimes my understanding of reality is skewed. I grew up next to Anne of Green Gables and Sara Crewe, believing the best in everyone and all things turn out all right in the end and families are happy and sadness is overcome through sun and love and hugs. some childish thoughts must be realized as adolescence is left behind, but the vastness of the open night sky could either be a large emptiness of terrifying unknown or a sparkling place of wonder and i chose the latter. you might dwell on the unhappy pieces that you can't seem to work through, and you chose not to tell me exactly where that takes place. Now my eyes are opened, but more with dewdrops of sadness because you thought to shield me from this part of you.

do you think I won't accept you, all of you?

Can it hurt to try?

instead, you covered it, hiding behind planks with flowers painted fading orange ochre sage on a yellow background. did you think i would never find it, never notice?

and where to move from here?

what should I do now?

Apples

i have an apple cinnamon candle saved up for the first day the snow flies this year. it's tucked in my cupboard, infusing its smell into extra paperclips, size .5 pencil lead, and envelopes and stamps. it's such a romantic thought- an envelope heading to a friend or family member, hiding not only written words with thoughts and greetings scribbled across the page, but the barest hint of the crossing time between fall and winter.

for those out of state, it's a hopeful reminder of home and love. i took out an envelope this morning. i had a letter waiting to go to a place far south of here, a place where sun is constant and the temperatures don't get colder than a temperate morning up in the north in fall. hopefully with this letter, i can send walking around my apartment in slippers, thermals, and a mug of coffee just to keep warm before the heaters clank on. i want to fold up opening the back door on my way to work; that first intake of cold outside air and nestling farther inside the knits surrounding my body.

i tuck the letter in, alongside mounting my old road bike and crunching through the last leaves of the year as i speed down Superior street. the bare branches beginning to shake in a breeze coming off the lake. the few tourists left for the year wear large parkas and walk briskly along the boardwalk, couples holding each other close to keep warm.

which of them use it to block the wind, which use it as an excuse to get closer to the one they love?

i drop the envelope in the blue box, large and open and swirling leaves collecting beneath its feet with the promise of fast fast fast travel and the comfort of receiving a small envelope in a few days.

an envelope smelling of apples, cinnamon,

and the coffee i accidentely dropped on it this morning.

accidentely...

Trapped

How much am I really doing?

I thought that with academia behind me for now, things would be simpler. pressures would be less, the weight on my shoulders just a thicker coat to protect against wind and snow. Instead, Atlas and I look alike as I shift the weights of so many things around. my back hurts; the muscles knot up and don't release even in the blissful relaxation of dreaming. where did all this come from?

some are larger than others. mindless work day after day and i am anxious with the wait for something new, something better. I want more but my fingers are tangled deep and woven together and i can't move and now i can't breathe and the roof closes in so I can't see the snowflakes drifting outside.

how can I escape?

grasping

we've turned a corner.

the ghosts and goblins and pumpkin-smashers came out of the darkness, scared and collected treats and got tucked into bed with mouths covered in chocolate. jack-o-lanters no longer protect the porches and front doors lining 1st avenue. instead, trees have been shedding all their leaves in the last few days.

I wheeled my bike out of the bike port yesterday, watching tendrils of my breathe curl in the early morning sunbeams. they lit up the trees like fire

then i noticed how scarce they looked

how bare, how sad, premonitions of the months ahead.

N O !

not yet. it barely felt like the colors were out before they left again. branches black and sharp against the sky. my lungs burned when i biked to the grocery store, ran in, added fall in my basket.

pumpkins

nutmeg

cinnamon

chocolate, both for drinking and eating

hurried home, burst in the kitchen, kicked out the remnants of leftover chinese, and began weaving a web of autumn on the fourth floor. no winter allowed.

batter on my hands, flour on my cheek, dishes steaming in hot water. the air in the apartment weighs down with brown flavors that warm and tingle and you can taste leaves and chill along with the oxygen.

i was putting chocolate on the last of the cookies as you came home. you took in the chaos and laughed, recognizing my motives. then we tasted my pumpkin cookies dipped in hot chocolate, still warm from the oven, licking milk chocolate drizzle from our fingers. Can we tell one more ghost story? walk on the hiking trail before it's lost under gleaming snow? can i tell you about the halloween blizzard of 1991, being pulled around on a sled by my dad, getting bags and bags of candy because no one else braved the storm? can we lay on the ground under the maple trees in the park? i get red leaves and yellow leaves caught in my long hair, and you pull them out and tell me i look like the wood nymph you almost caught last year.

for one more night, I'm going to wrap myself in a blanket, hide on the couch with Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree, and pretend that it's still the deep of fall. warm enough for a walk without a coat, layered in knitted scarves and handwarmers and hugs and the twilight of the sun, lighting up the trees littered with remnants of the season.