November.
November is filled with barren trees, their branches rest beneath my skin like cold handprints lingering on a windowpane. Cut-out stories we have stitched into the seams of our pockets, words folded into paper shapes of a swan or perhaps a star fastened onto thick winter coats. Time adorned by silk blouses and throwing pennies in the well are long over; moth wings have settled in place. Little films of dust have been collecting quietly in a year of absence, too many cobwebs stored under a pillow case. Spending idle days between lumps caught in throats, crackling pines, printed words gasping for air, and woolgathering tufts of tangled threads.
Tucked inside my coat pocket is a map of autumn and her constellations; their stories are prickly pinpricks, a fastened brilliance impossible to forget. Elsewhere, something broke, perhaps the moon gave way to the fading violet sky. But here lie the uncharted dirt roads, cold lips, and our shadows palpably defined.
