by Kaylee Fichtel
And suddenly its autumn born again,
and although I’ve moved half a state away
(back to the coast, to the forest, to home),
the kiss-swept sun of september dusk
is the same milky gold of every fall before:
Falling, lazily, through leaves and branches
like tacked-up birthday streamers sagging with age
and dappling different sidewalks in the same old way.
The dragging heat of summer staining tangerine-ripe –
light bleeding through the same smoke of the same hell of a different damnation.
It’s a song all too familiar,
the same as apple crisp and pumpkin spice
and bile on my tongue.
And though my hands no longer aspen-quake
at the thought of ever winter-spring to come,
in more ways than I’d admit I’m still that same girl:
waiting at the bus stop, too tired to lift her boots,
hopeless-in-love with you and waiting
for autumn born again.
Kaylee Fichtel has been obsessed with words and magic from a young age and now spends most of her time weaving the two together, in her head or on paper. When she’s not writing, she can be found seeking out large bodies of water or untangling bits of thread and yarn as she tangos with the fiber arts. She lives in the US’s PNW with her family, dog, and her books.