My body collapses
with a thunderclap,
and the heavy-hearted wind carries the last
of beautiful, dying things.

as I lay twisting
on dirt-ice ground,
the weakening sun whispers,
in its faraway, fatalistic way,
that its strength will not return in some future summer
and warmth will not ever settle
into my cold skin.

how clearly my fuzzy eyes now see.
the final fall’s just an echo
following the flash,
that broke me long ago,
crashing through
fragile roots,
leaving
burnt wood
and a liquidized mind,
stuck sideways
in unfertile dirt

oh, though,
when I felt,
how I loved the fall,
both the scraping of knees,
blood staining ripped jeans,
and
days full of fullness
ever-falling,
with the falsely-dead trees sighing,
“oh, sweet, lonely loss.”

but, bright beauty and feeling fall,
and desolation reigns,
cold
and untamed.

and it’s easy to stand so stoically strong,
when your veins
peddle only grey
and your heart
reeks of rot
and your dry branches
refuse to bend
and break as maurderers,
opposed to a pretty bird perching.
but, those days are gone.
passivity has left my heart,
and traveled to my legs and brain.
there are worse days to come.

if for any longer I remain,
maybe I’ll be mistaken for a rotting leaf,
so someone will finally rake
or burn me away,
with my brothers,
on a yellow, suburban lawn.
or they’d just asphyxiate me,
their plasticbag straining over my silent, red mouth,
fore I'm dragged to the dump,
where crows,
with creaking cries that harbor no care,
sing a constant, hungry dirge,
for their faceless masses.

fear follows lengthening shadows and other harbingers of dark.
once I could survive after another day
of pushing people away,
but now,
lightning-scarred and stripped of all bark,
I’m left to stand in the black woods,
naked and pale,
against oncoming night’s indifferent frost.

I’ve heard of hope.
tonight,
I’ll freeze
and hope to be unborn,
I'll sigh
and hope this feeling comes to everyone.