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.

pumpkin time

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and mustache!

doppelganger 2

The sun creeps away sooner and sooner, giving way for butternut squash soup, garlic bread, and hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks. i accidentally dropped mine in my apple cider last night, then kept burning the tips of my already-tender fingers playing a fisherman. I sucked on the end of my right pointer finger, tasting cider, a piece of cinnamon, and a little bit of chalk from training on the wall earlier. it radiates heat, looks red and a little purple on the exact spot where my fingers kept sliding off the sloping hold.

it feels better fast, healed with the feeling of fall and the smell of the pumpkin bread my roommate has cooling on my cookie racks. tomorrow i'm going to roll out dough for almond cookies, cut like ghosts and causing smiles and content stomachs.

i squish down deeper into the couch, surrounded with blankets made by friends that gloriously don't match, a mix of bright blue and green with empty swimsuits dancing clashing with a crochet baby yellow and white wrapped around my feet. you put in 28 days later, continuing our horrorfest to celebrate my favorite holiday. i hide my eyes when the blood gushes, squirming but enjoying the feeling of contentment at sharing a night at home with friends. you reheat another cup of cider for me, ask me if I'll sleep at all tonight.

i'll be fine.

stop bugging me.

he doesn't know i'm leaving the christmas lights on to scare off any zombies.

this morning felt like the opening scene of the movie on my walk for coffee.

the streets were quiet.

deserted.

the gales of november screamed off the lake.

i thought i was alone.

then i passed the empty popcorn wagon and started.

she scared me.

i walked by again, and she drifted by. silent.

i walked closer, and i could see the napkin dispenser through her shoulder.

her red hat blurred off the shiny oven in back.

she looked like me, but she was an echo, an afterthought, a reflection.

or am i the reflection?

the wind wound around the wisps of my braid and i walked away, shivering, trying to keep away the moment of unknown i encountered in the window of the popcorn wagon.

but secretly hoarding the thrill in my torso.

it is, after all, almost Halloween.

doppelganger 1

Saturday night was for Jenelle and Cheryl and me and Dracula, watching a ballerina as Lucy go from white and pure and flow and grace to red and black and sharp lines and quick movements. Girl's Night Out complete with cosmos, high heels, and laughing.

Sunday it changed. My whole body aged fifty years overnight and I creaked and moaned, and my eyelids could feel the heat radiating from my forehead. i'm bad at knowing how to stop, so i didn't try at first. lunch with out of town friends found me nearly asleep on the table between french toast and rubens, freezing with three shirts on under my black dance fleece. i'm lucky my eyes were still blue and my hair was still long and blonde otherwise they wouldn't have recognized me underneath the pale face resembling Lucy. I drifted home; floated up iron stairs and buried myself under mounds of blankets.

Luckily, I had a double that Cheryl made for me.

She covered for me on Sunday. While I wallowed and drank tea and slept hours and hours, shivering and overheating and shivering and overheating, she had on her purple rain boots and her yellow raincoat, dancing under the gloomy sky outside, being the sun when none appeared. not for me, not then, not when my head was too heavy for my neck muscles to support. She tap danced time steps in puddles and let her hair flow around her elbows.

it was nice that i could look at her and know that i could take a day to let my body fix itself. she holds her umbrella high and winks at me, and my pale cheeks flush with a smile and i wink back.

i'll dance with her soon.