Autumn’s Promise

You were telling me of Autumn,

but the words stumbled from your lips,

like drunken beggars,

seeking a gutter in which to lay.

Sweet dreams,

of a new year and another chance.

Funny, how we’ve been out of school

for so many years

and September still feels like

the beginning of something,

but it is not;

not anymore.

 

You know it,

I know it

and Autumn will bring with it

color changing leaves,

cool mornings

and school busses

and you will still be here,

stuck in this sad cycle of self gratification.

Slave to the insidious

small town sickness

that took so many I knew.

Whatever it is,

it latched on to your spirit,

like a cerebral parasite.

It stole away all the pretty things,

chewing up the ends of your synapses,

so that you don’t even know

that you’re trapped and broken.

 

Autumn will come

and I likely will not see you;

not That I don’t want to,

but when the season changes

and you do not,

you will sequester yourself,

with only your demons to console you.

I have long given up on sending rescue,

your jagged eye has taken

what was once so sure about you

and set free some malady

that was latent within you.

 

I still pray for you,

every Autumn,

for I know that you still feel

the change in the air.

I hope,

that on one of those

new, crisp mornings,

you will choose to take Autumn’s promise

and let the dead things fall from you,

to be scattered by the wind.

I hear the words

stumble from your mouth again

and I know that promises

are just thoughts to you,

that will not survive the winter.

 

HG – 2016

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