who i am and why i'm not (poetry)

november

lord, november comes again.

i never move, never make

a sound, yet it finds me, almost

as if it yearns for the silence.

wind plays with empty branches,

and

crickets stop their songs,

and I unravel softly like a

caught sweater.

lord, november comes again

putting my barren mind into

sad light.

a false fire in the trees,

a falling fight from the leaves.

the birds have flown to better

places, and I was left behind to

rot with it all, to feel, feel, feel.

lord, novembers here.

and the season takes me

gently in its claws.

scoops me up by the scruff,

like a mother does her

kitten.

I'm in its teeth now, and I think,

as the spikes pierce stars into

my sky,

that next year, I won't let it in.

July will be infinite, held up in

my hands like a child, a trophy,

a flare.

lord, do not let november in again.

-V