Dear Autumn,
The first poem I ever wrote was about Alaska. Did I ever tell you that? It was about mittens, and a sold coat, and the regret I felt about giving all my warm undergarments away. My fourth grade teacher thought I was a prodigy. She sent my piece off to every contest in the United States; She even hung it up on the bulletin board beside her desk. When I feel like giving up, I think about that. I consider my pudgy, little hands scribbling away...confusing everyone with my lower-case r's that looked like v's. It ended with:
"I wish I'd never come to Alaska."
I think I knew then I wasn't fit for the cold.
Dear Autumn,
Tonight I drove to the airport--heart shrouded with eager intention. I like to play pretend sometimes; Relive moments as if they are unfurling like perfectly planned chapters before my eyes.
I caught a flight I should have taken a long time ago. Under the dingy, orange lights outside the terminal, I abandoned my car and flew north for the winter. I greeted it as if it were an old and faithful friend.
This time,
Ann Arbor was beautiful;
I caught it in my hand...
And I wasn't chasing it anymore.
Dear Autumn,
I've done it again: I've unlaced all my problems, and mismatched all my shoes. And people are judging me...they won't even consider walking a mile inside of my life to try to get the whole story. This one family adopted me. Their last name was The Body of Christ. They said I could be a foot once I wasn't broken anymore. I didn't know I wasn't healed. I showed off all my bones again.
I got lit on a coffee table, and called it confidence.
And I've been carrying the words they spoke over me ever since.
I was told recently that the words I say are like venom. I guess all my healing potions and exhortation went bad on the shelf. All the gifts you told me I have, have downsides.
Maybe I think I'm someone else.
Dear Autumn,
Sometimes I stare into black holes. They call themselves memories, but no one has faces. Not even me. Sometimes I am afraid I was hurt inside the lines that have no writing; Hurt badly...so badly my mind erased it. Will you brainstorm a hypothesis? If you were here, then I'd adopt it for my life, and I could figure out why I can't stand everyone I want to love so badly.
Dear Autumn
I was twenty-one and reckless when you loved me; when you pursed your lips, and kissed my sores and mended me like wounds. When I flinched you let me. You told me scars have character and character is what makes things interesting...like the little bristly hairs left over in Van Gogh's paintings. I have blue, sagging half-moons under my eyes now; They are mile markers of twenty-three [and all the love that's made roadmaps all over me].
Autumn, am I too old to feel magic? Sometimes I get scared because I'm starting to see aging in my hands, and I'm worried that no man will ever come along and kiss them, or love them again. But more than kissing them, and loving them, I want him to see me.
Autumn, I'm writing you because I think I might be transparent.
What if no one ever sees me again?
