........

And so begins my struggle with the season,

bemusement at the passage of time,

nostalgia for a naïveté

I will never regain

—when all autumn was

was bursts of colour

and warmth in the cold,

a time for good food and family.

Yes;

and

so

begins

my

battle

with

gravity.

........

#poetry

#autumn

#fall

#seasons

#seasonalaffectivedisorder

There's a stain on the wall about four inches to the left of the television set. The stain has been there for a long time. If Daryl were to look at it closely enough, which he never does, he'd still be able to see the spindly remains of an unlucky fly's legs. The fly’s left wing had fallen off from the wall about two weeks after its death, and now rests at the wall’s edge where it meets the floor, paper-thin and invisible, caked in a thin layer of dust.

A poorly-performed burial service.

Sometimes Daryl looks at the stain, but then whatever TV program he’s watching snatches his attention back, and he forgets about it again. Today, HGTV is on. Daryl thinks of changing it, but his hands are covered in barbeque sauce, so he leaves the remote where it is and continues eating. Onscreen, a kitchen is being gutted. Someone is taking a hammer to the cabinets, and Daryl wonders if the man’s safety goggles will leave funny marks around his eyes. He takes another bite of his chicken wing and then sets the plate aside, mostly untouched. He hasn’t had much of an appetite lately. Can’t even bring himself to lick the sticky sauce from his fingers, so he just rests his hands palms up on his lap, fingers curling inward.

There is a sink down the short hallway and into the kitchen, and he thinks of going to it. He’d take the plate of wings with him, maybe, so he could put the leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow. To Daryl, it doesn’t look like the countertops in the kitchen on his television screen are all that outdated, but a woman named Casey insists it’s necessary for the eventual cohesion of the space, and Daryl figures she probably knows better than him. It looks satisfying, breaking up the pieces and starting all over again.

Outside the window on the left side of the couch, the sun is making its slow descent. Orange bleeds into the room, folding itself into the single, beige pillow and disappearing. Daryl doesn’t notice. They’ve started in on the master bedroom now.

In the daylight, Daryl tells himself that there are things worth doing.

Sometimes he goes to the grocery store and stands in the aisle underneath the blinking fluorescents and tries to remember which kind of ice cream is his favorite. In the end, he just gets chocolate. He’s glad for the automatic checkout lines, the robotic voice of a woman he doesn’t know that asks how many bags he’d like and tells him he can insert his credit card now. There are people here. He can see them even beneath the ugly lights. Terse glances at calorie counts, the playful gaze of a girl holding up a sushi roll for her boyfriend to see. (This one, babe?), a mother reaching for a dropped pacifier, eternal patience etched into her smile lines. Daryl knows he belonged here, once, but the world passed him by a long time ago, and God knows it won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Certainly not for him.

In front of the TV again, Daryl dips into the ice cream container. He’s sure there’s a bowl somewhere in the kitchen, but the cabinets always seem to glare at him, wondering why they’re not being updated. Today, it’s a crime show of some kind. Flashing red lights, caution tape surrounding the outside of somebody’s shattered, suburban life. The camera follows a sandy-haired man and his giant of a partner into the house, bloodstains smudged sporadically along the carpet as they make their way into the foyer. A melted bit of ice cream drips onto Daryl’s socked foot. He ignores it.

“Could be a ghost,” the sandy-haired man says only to his partner, voice dipped too low for the other investigators to hear.

Huh, Daryl thinks. Not just a regular crime show then.

Outside his window, the sun has been down for hours. The dead fly on the wall beside the television screen loses another leg, weightless and tiny and impossible to notice. A packet of barbeque sauce from Daryl’s chicken wings has tipped over, seeping sluggishly into the beige pillow closest to the window. Tomorrow, Daryl will see the unfixable stain, and he will be filled with an overwhelming sadness that cannot be explained.

The day after that, he will sit back down on the couch and finish off the rest of his ice cream. The pillow will be flipped over, barbeque sauce side down.

A poorly-performed burial service.

Mom and Dad came home that night,

all smiles as they turned off the light.

Their love shined bright,

illuminating the halls white.

My eyes wouldn’t shut,

so I ran into Mom and Dad’s room, fearful of being caught

by monsters that lay in plot.

Turns out, the demons were not what I thought.

Where was Dad?

I thought they both had come in glad.

And when I asked Mom, she became sad.

Where was Dad?

She wouldn't tell me,

and all I could do was plea.

Tell me, tell me.

But really, I could see.

I could see that her heart was tired,

that her smiles were wired

by a love that I had admired,

but in fact, had expired.

Dad was not coming back

to this once-lively shack.

Dad had chosen this track

and now he can never come back.

once upon a time,

there was a princess.

she lived in no castle,

with no cruel stepmother.

she had short hair,

no cursed 16th birthday.

she had no tail,

no beast that held her captive.

she was locked in a different kind of tower,

with a vicious beast.

she was cursed in a different way.

her curse jumbled her mind,

turning it into porridge.

never just right.

it was always too hot or too cold.

and she could never say a word,

for fear of the queen finding her hidden with the dwarfes.

so she stayed silent,

trapped.

there was no prince in her future,

no boy to save the damsel in distress.

she just had herself.

so she had to make do.

You’re as empty as my words, as I ease your thighs open with my mouth.

But you’re warm because every word was sweet.

You’re warm because they caught fire down inside of you.

Warm and empty.

You don’t know it yet.

But you’re as broken as my thoughts as I crash through yours.

And maybe you’re catching on.

And maybe now you’re cooling down.

And if you’ve changed your mind, I can fix that.

I’ll break down your doors.

You’re only a vacant house.

Just let me in.

I’m no one, and we’re nothing.

Just let me in.

We’re both empty.

Just let me in.

You’re as empty as my words.

And I dare you to ever find the heat again.

And maybe if you had just let me in.

But I dare you to ever find that heat again.

Because you’re empty and you’re broken.

And I doubt you’ll ever find any heat again.

#EndTheSilence