applerot

it's my favorite season, the season of in-between

too hot in the sun
too cold in the shade

there are so many apples i didn't pick, now rotting down there under the balcony.

they're dying, lopped off limbs, a feast for wasps and worms and yellow-jackets and drowsy honey-bees getting ready for their long nap.
i have dropped, my skin has split, and I am Disappearing in the tiniest bites of the tiniest mouths.

the wind is just cold enough and just strong enough that its teeth nibble through my sweater like the first hesitant mouse
the first tiny herald of winter, creeping indoors
the doctor says my heart rate is too high, so i don't think about anything past that threshold.
i am outside, away from everything that feels so black and white.
windteeth
splitfleshed
woodgnarled
wintermouse wondering if this is the year the big green house will not let me in.

i carefully pick up this moment and turn it in my hands

i have dropped, my skin has split, but my insides are opened up to the sun<br>the insects clean what is rotting from me
the miraculous hard-shelled packages of nutrients, ready to explode into life, are freed into the dirt.

it is too hot for a sweater, too cold to go without,
and i am here again, in the place of joy and sorrow,
where the old rots
and the new is set free.