You wear October like a body
A skeleton clattering in glass skin
A windchime
A motherless vampire hiding in your bedroom
You wear October like a body
And branches become more bare daily
I can't seem to find the end of you
You’re the bitter cold seeping through my window
and the blankets shielding me from it
You’re the secret and the confidante
We are the story I want to read over and over
I keep track of time by the length of your hair,
and the weather by how many of my gloves are missing
My life isn’t mine when it isn't yours
I like my food when it's the part you don't want
I like songs when they're something we would dance to
I like my hair when it's soft enough to run your hands through
I like my voice when it's quiet enough to be spoken close to your ear
My favorite dresses are the ones I need your help to zip up the back,
I like my jewelry when I need you to do the clasp
I like water when it tastes like the tap at your mothers house
I like my body while you're holding it
I like tea when it’s turned sour because you didn't take the bag out
I like to shiver while you wear my coat
You’d sometimes ask if I was warm enough I like that you pretended to care
How could I have kept you?
In a thousand lockets?
By renaming rain, “June”, to drench in our honeymoon?
I’d bruise my fingertips to keep them purple
if it meant they'd taste like backyard blueberries again
I’d bruise my whole body to keep it so blue
I’d like to say that you were mine
Because I held summer so tightly I became it
That you ran through the city at night looking for me
That every conversation you had was an interrogation, (“where is She?”)
I used to kiss all of your fingers
I used to reach mine up your coat sleeves and mend four arms into two
I am a half without you
I set myself on fire to become your favorite weather
Instead it lit our green leaves orange
You wear October like a body
And I live in your cold world
October 2022