Rattle

Monday, November 23, 2015

The leaves rattle against the side of my car

As I sit here to wait out the first true chill of fall,

Each degree causing to shrink a little inside,

I want what I’ve always wanted, but can never have

On fair days with warm sun, I feel less its loss,

I am always losing something and finding something else

I’ve lost before when searching for what I’ve lost this time,
luck and ill luck tied together so I always get both,

I’m chained to the ground, a perpetual prisoner of my own life,

Condemned to the slow decay time brings, like an old leaf

Listening to the rattle of leaves already turned brown

Or lingering at the edges of limbs they are too weak to escape,

Moved, but unmoved by each gust of wind,

Lost when I finally break free to roll across leaf-strewn streets,

With no real purpose or direction, finding no company

In the piles of other leaves only indignity of rubbing shoulders

With strangers when all I ache for is to return to the tree

To turn green again, when all I can do is rattle.