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autumn (time on a string)

the chill of fall settles into my ribs. it whispers coldcoldcold and strangestrangestrange because this time last year, when i was not a paper maché mockery of a person but one with heart of stone and a colosseum of bones i would not have been cold. there was a fire inside of me that kept me warm in even colder temperatures than now that i have lost somewhere along the way.

fall is comforting. fall is home. fall carves a path through campus that makes me forget and remember, all at once, that ache in my heart. fall has always made me feel reborn - like something new was about to start - like the leaves were changing and so would i. an adventure beginning.

and that still stays, like thistle weeds clinging to my shoes, looking for a better home. pieces still stay. but sometimes i'll shiver, sometimes i'll look up at the smaller sky and i'll just miss. i'll miss and it runs deeper into my bones than the chill ever could.

i know parts of us will remain here too, i had said in my graduation speech, but i hadn't expected high school to steal my warmth, steal every good memory, make me yearn for a time that i had once said was a grave for all of my dreams. i miss it the same way i miss my mother's arms after she would guilt trip me until i cried, i miss it the same way i miss the river next to the house that ate me alive, i miss it the same way i miss kind words and apologies and the smell of coconut shampoo after tending wounds caused by the vicious words of a 13 year old girl.

in my mind, college has always seemed like an opportunity for rebirth - like something new about to start - like the world would change and so would i. an adventure beginning.

but then winter comes and fall's adventure is cut short.

life goes on and i do not.

maybe that stagnation is why i rely on fall so much because the change, the colors, the flurry of crisp air and crisp smells and the world rushing around me preparing for winter makes me feel like i'm changing too. like i'm moving.

yet i'm stuck. i'm stuck in the forest in west, i'm stuck in the sea in california, and washington, and maine; i'm hung up in an art museum in rhode island and a flower shop in seattle that have never existed; i'm trapped in a petrified tree museum in south dakota, i'm held in her brain, in her heart, in her autumn arms.

life goes too quick but nothing changes.

the door is open a crack in the building of the major i'm supposed to follow, the major i'm supposed to want, to work hard for, the one that has promised me a comfortable financially stable life and yet i hear the siren song through the crack of that door and i find myself unable to tear myself away. because maybe my dreams never truly died in high school. maybe they're just stuck. maybe they're just like me.

i go to class late. life goes on.

(and even so, ever the paradoxical, mysterious thing, it holds still.)