i’m tired of talking about the weather:

clouds,

blue skies, 

rain,

lightning and thunder –

that’s all too tepid and tame.

. . .

Describe the depths and layers of the clouds unfolding from the top of the mountain you just climbed, as you struggled to breathe, even though the air was so natural and pure.

What did it feel like to drive all alone with the moonlight hidden through the thick fog on a lost highway in the silent, dark, desolate night?

When was the last time you got caught in the rain, vulnerable and unguarded, as the sky poured tears from a clear blue vault of heaven disguised by sunshine?

Who were you dreaming of when the charge of lightning pierced through the midnight sky and the trembling thunder rolled in, shaking your soul awake, leaving you yearning for shelter from the storm?

. . .

our exchange would be much more enchanting,

if we revealed what it’s like to be human –

if i showed you what it’s like to me,

and you showed me what it’s like to be you.

| ccs |

 

I linger too long sinking deep into the beaten, worn-in leather seat, staring at the brightly lit star illuminated in the black October sky. I am high from the smoke that spirals off your lips and the sweet lies that fall softly off your tongue drowning into the acoustic, haunting melody of an old cassette tape that stays stuck and lodged into your radio deck.

In this moment, I wish for spring and dream of a child picking from a prairie full of dandelions and sweetly blowing its seeds into the warm wind.

But it isn’t spring, and autumn is chilling with its smokey, crisp burnt air.

And I need to breathe.

Slamming the shot, squeaky car door shut, I walk to the edge of the highway noticing my feet feeling off-balance with each piece of gravel that wedges itself into the traction of my shoes. I stare at the ambered decomposed cornfields ahead. The moonlight hits the row of Venus’ Looking Glass and lights up the silvery grey leaflets of Snakeroot that line the highway. I bend over to pick the tiny lavender clovers as a semi truck’s deafening horn shudders me awake.

The daydream of spring escapes me. I am here. It’s autumn and I’m falling – falling like the leaves that swirl around me with the gust of wind that takes them from their branches. I reach out to capture a keepsake of what’s left of the tree, but the leaf is swept up too fast spiraling and spiraling before it falls back to the Earth.

Like falling in love, the sweep is sudden. And spring seems distant and far removed while the fall chill brings in the barren and biting frost of winter.

I return back to the car. Another verse of the song repeats itself, singing me to sleep as I drift off remembering the scent of the flowers on the side of the road that I now replace with the stale scent of you in a haze of reality.

I never meant to make this moment my home.

I never meant to linger this long.

Spring washes away the solace of winter, yet I stay frozen in October.

I linger in this moment – between fate, temptation and phenomena. I want to smell the sweet succulents of spring, I want to die with the flowers over and over again, awakening and re-emerging from the universe. Yet, I stay stagnant and lifeless in the harvest moon. The angst of not knowing what is yet to come is much more delicious and tempting to my soul than the joy of being impassioned, faithful and marching to the song of myself in the spring.

As October comes and goes, I swirl like the leaf in the gust of the wind forgetting to return to the landscape, forgetting the flowers, forgetting the lush, budding, maturing beauty and newness of spring. I forget to plant myself back in the ground. I stay in October, deep-rooted in its virtue and mystique of the fall and where I will land.

But, I have already landed.

And, the car is gone. The music has stopped. The smell of smoke and leather has worn into the past and I stay lingering…

…

I linger too long; I break my own heart.

|  ccs |