For now, I will stay alive.

October presses me against his chest -
I feel all the sadness he summons
as my lungs breathe the oppressive
air of a hundred different lives;
he mourns with me.
The leaves touch exposed skin.
I shudder at the thought of
hanging limbs on the
skeleton tree.

He is every gust of shame,
of darkness, of hauntings.
I reflect on how often I've wanted
to sink into the earth,
like a sacrifice, to dust I shall return.
But his lips move my bones;
nothing has ended.

Just as his face will harden
and turn ashen with winter's approach,
he will someday return
with dahlias in his hand,
the warmth of a sun I thought
would die when all the good
in the world faded away.