Automn opens her eyes ever so
Slightly; earth toned irises within
The green mirror of a summer
Dozing off, her awakening reflected

In human breath now visible upon  
Chilled evening air, and
Lovers' fingers seeking closer
Shelter within the shared

Pockets of each other.
You ask what the doctor said,
But I have sweeter fish to fry
Than worry; such sensations

As the way your skin is the
Softest I have ever felt against
My own surface of scars and hair,
And how I'm looking forward to

October auburns, bronzes, yellows
And sepias. All in contrast to the
Whites and magnolias of the
Winter that follows their blossom,

And the excuses the coldness
In their wake presents to lean
Closer. Huddle up. Warm hands
Under garments, share blankets

With the least innocent of
Intentions. I love the subzeros.
Frost. Goosebumps receding under
A kiss. And another. And another.

My mother forgot to put a varnish on me / when she made me / I can imagine how vivid I’d be / if way back when I was eight / I’d noticed that sepias weren’t the right colors / on a child’s mind //

Now I’m slamming into sixteen / the way an addict is supposed to hit a wall / no longer sliding into the high / but scratching at the furthest point / sometimes the sadness has nowhere to go / and it just ripples along each nerve / from the inside out //

Like today / I sat for five hours for an exam / to qualify for things I don’t want to do / in support of institutions that make me sick / and the only movement was my pencil / the rest of my blood stopped flowing / and I got so cold / like today I sat with something in my throat / and just my arms shaking / while my mother told me about  boy strung up on barb wire fencing //

But both of those things still pull at the bone on my back / where wings could be / where I could have found happiness if I’d just tried / the way a body feels with the absence of heat / ******* out all the good things / I know lay under those clothes / and the way //

I count quarters every night / and sweat at the laundromat / I wish these things could be solved by just feeling about them / have you ever pushed your emotions because you knew you weren’t feeling them hard enough / so you asked your throat to constrict a little more / the fuzz of your tense shoulders to ride your skin a little more / it’s like if I pay attention to myself I can think with less clarity / and maybe if I push with my thumb on all the things that make me tick / I won’t tick anymore //

Water in my roots
And once again, my stems bleed me out of an aquamarine cyclone
Flying through every cloud, floating through the dopamine daydreams
manias and monotones
After a decade of droughts
I twirled in a tornado
While the demons ate my brain
So I designed a tavern
To lock myself in

Water in my roots
And once again, a blurred vision of ecstasy blinds my eyesight
Looking in opaque mirrors, pressing the pearls of the pendulum
sepias and saxophones
I danced through a hurricane
While the angels saved my torso
So I tore the broken chains
To let myself out