So Today is Five Years
Here for the MR Andrew Lewis, another proof that I can manage English as a (first) language:
The days of November, five years ago, I had long hair the color of rotten wood, tangled up like undergrowth around the back of my body. It was the marriage of grey and rust and it fell on my shoulders and lifted in the wind at the same time. The strands made habit of floating in the limbo of static, both untamed and trained to keep me warm on my walks.
I made habits about it, in November I walked around the raked leaves browned and spotted with dry red. The air turned cold that year in a slow descent to the bottom of the thermometer and leaves dripped in a spiral from their stems, evolving into scores of raked mesh. The wind tossed all fallen things into the corners of porches and against tree stumps, at the uneven tiles of cement sidewalks, waiting to trip feet under the markings of leaves. I crunched and kicked them up. It was my seasonal hot chocolate, talking long walks, messing up the fall, with the bitter tastes of cough medicine and the dry company of the kids that lived near by.
Most days were just silent, maybe a muffle of sound, a coated body, making leaves flutter up like puffs of smoke. I stood that day under the subtle air weakening under the oak trees, staring at the wide stump and veins of a tree running in streets against the cement colored sky. Its branches looked like skinny fingers, dry bones, corpse hands.
I wish I could still look across the table at Derrick. He had the good kind of freckles, the ones that came with tanned skin and his hazel eyes reminded me of those first browned leaf of the season that I came across on my walks. I knew he was a little curious about me.
“What?” I used to say. He would take one look at me with a grin like the silhouette of an apple, heavier on top than bottom. Then Derrick would shake his head and his eyes, kissing me on the forehead.
…………………………………………..
The night he passed away, in the cold I forced my cough out into the air to make a gust of white smoke. Lying awake in my bed, the night had turned into a stretch of thoughts.
I didn’t have to look outside to tell the sky was stale with grey coverage, pinned up with rain. I heard the neighborhood waking for work. For some reason I always expected houses to do something other than stand still. But I walked out to the back porch anyway, worn down by the weather; the porch creaked with my footsteps. In the bitter winds, I hid my fingers in pockets and under sleeves, my jacket the color of smoke sealed up like a boulder over a cave.
Five years ago today, the houses were still, the wood was dry and dead and the leaves had fallen off the trees to decay on the steps and porches of each lawn. Everything was in decay and dusted about the lower half of the world. Five years ago, I cried like spiraling leaves on my hair, long and undone sticking to my face with the clinging wet around charcoal covered trees.
The days of November, five years ago, I had long hair the color of rotten wood, tangled up like undergrowth around the back of my body. It was the marriage of grey and rust and it fell on my shoulders and lifted in the wind at the same time. The strands made habit of floating in the limbo of static, both untamed and trained to keep me warm on my walks.
I made habits about it, in November I walked around the raked leaves browned and spotted with dry red. The air turned cold that year in a slow descent to the bottom of the thermometer and leaves dripped in a spiral from their stems, evolving into scores of raked mesh. The wind tossed all fallen things into the corners of porches and against tree stumps, at the uneven tiles of cement sidewalks, waiting to trip feet under the markings of leaves. I crunched and kicked them up. It was my seasonal hot chocolate, talking long walks, messing up the fall, with the bitter tastes of cough medicine and the dry company of the kids that lived near by.
Most days were just silent, maybe a muffle of sound, a coated body, making leaves flutter up like puffs of smoke. I stood that day under the subtle air weakening under the oak trees, staring at the wide stump and veins of a tree running in streets against the cement colored sky. Its branches looked like skinny fingers, dry bones, corpse hands.
I wish I could still look across the table at Derrick. He had the good kind of freckles, the ones that came with tanned skin and his hazel eyes reminded me of those first browned leaf of the season that I came across on my walks. I knew he was a little curious about me.
“What?” I used to say. He would take one look at me with a grin like the silhouette of an apple, heavier on top than bottom. Then Derrick would shake his head and his eyes, kissing me on the forehead.
…………………………………………..
The night he passed away, in the cold I forced my cough out into the air to make a gust of white smoke. Lying awake in my bed, the night had turned into a stretch of thoughts.
I didn’t have to look outside to tell the sky was stale with grey coverage, pinned up with rain. I heard the neighborhood waking for work. For some reason I always expected houses to do something other than stand still. But I walked out to the back porch anyway, worn down by the weather; the porch creaked with my footsteps. In the bitter winds, I hid my fingers in pockets and under sleeves, my jacket the color of smoke sealed up like a boulder over a cave.
Five years ago today, the houses were still, the wood was dry and dead and the leaves had fallen off the trees to decay on the steps and porches of each lawn. Everything was in decay and dusted about the lower half of the world. Five years ago, I cried like spiraling leaves on my hair, long and undone sticking to my face with the clinging wet around charcoal covered trees.