Red Leaves, Gold Sun

Red leaves glowing as if in a dream in the gold evening sun. My hands pressed firm in my jacket pockets, hood up. Standing in the grass inside that same old weight, wishing it was night. Wishing I was asleep. Wishing it had fired. The easy whisper of the wind through the trees and over the dead and brown leaves around my feet. 

"I've been thinking about trying to write something about why I do this," I had said to Charlie a week ago.

"Fear," she said.

Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was some sense of shame or guilt, or desire for punishment. Hard to say. 

Drag from the cigarette, exposed fingers in the cold air. Exhale. No satisfaction. A churning need to walk away, run away, if I was ever able to figure out what that meant or where to go. Five weeks left to find a place to live and not nearly enough cash to do it. Nowhere to safely turn. I could never figure out how to live. Not for lack of trying, it just never made sense to me. Incoherent.

Same old weight. 

Go home? Sit in the dim living room? Wish I had made different decisions? Be thankful I didn't? 

The sun setting over a treelined hill, the brilliance of the leaves muting. The cold air creeping further under my jacket. Conversations and strange looks burrowing deeper into my chest. 

"Fear," she said.

Ineptitude, most likely. Maybe I don't want love, I want to long. Maybe I don't want safety, I want discomfort. Maybe I don't want happiness, I want to suffer. Maybe I'm trying to give myself excuses. Maybe it is fear. Fear of being okay, because who am I if I'm not okay? 

Drag from the cigarette. 

"You somehow think you're only as valid as the pain you think you have," Marie had said maybe fifteen years ago. She was probably right.

Drag from the cigarette.

Fucking cold out.

Wish it had fired. Wish I knew what to do. 

Butt the cigarette in the grass. Step on the embers and smear them into the dirt. Put the butt in my pack, and the pack in my pocket. Hands in my pockets. Cold in my bones. I hadn't had a drink in a month or so and I needed one. Five. Twelve. Twelve and a series of phone calls. Twelve, a series of phone calls, and a destination. 

Or a gun.

Leaves crackling under my shoes as I walk the half mile back to my car.