Equinox

Those eyes in the forest

In the night

Were never there.

Never there with that look of seduction

Or any more than

The simplistic complexities of a one called “friend.”

This is the difference between friendship and heartbreak

(For I am one with the forest)

Where specifics vanish like the dew

In the morning

On each blade of grass,

Dying,

As the days grow shorter.

So on this patch of earth

I lay alone

As the starlings, in a cluster of fluttering black, scatter among

The trees above me

(For I am one with the death of the forest,

For I alone am one).

Did I choose to fall alone

As the last dying autumn leaf does at the end of the equinox?

Did I choose to fall alone?

I often think not

But that is the miracle of fear.

Fear of passion,

Fear of the feeling,

Fear of my own inexperienced being

Although:

I long for what I fear (of

The passion

Fear of the feeling,

Fear of my own inexperience of which

I feel I’m not ready

Or worthy to reverse).

But often

I know

That I’m all too ready

For those steps that I never learned to take

(Specifics vanish bitterly into the dawn).

Those starlings, I’ve counted them,

Six on each branch.

They huddle

Together

Like children to the breasts of their mothers.

Like women to the breasts of their lovers.

And sometimes I think that they’re all too close

To eachother to see their flaws.

And yet I stand on the crest of the hill among the trees

Where all of the forest can see me.

Does it see my flaws?

And sometimes I think that I’m too close

To the trees

(For I am one with the forest

…With the death of the forest

The death of…

For I am one with death.

I alone am one with death.

For I alone am one).

And death is consistent.

I have faith in consistency.

I can always count on my own

Solitary

Patch of dead grass in which I lay

As I can count on the migrations of the starling.

I can always count on my own self.

Consistency is a dogma

In which I put

My faith

Because the gratification of a challenge

Is too great to achieve.

I’m tired and I’m cold tonight,

Afraid to sleep alone.

But to be alone is consistent

And I have faith in consistency

(As in the way I know that the trees will grow

One inch

Per month this year).

I fear the breaking of schedule,

The breaking of normality

(For what if the dew fails to bead on the grass in the morning?

For what if the dew fails to bead?).

But I long for what I fear.

I want more than the gratification,

Than the harvest of young blood

As I count the seconds

Of the last dying flight of the starling;

It’s wings

-Mid-flight-

Give way to the End

Exactly twelve yards short of it’s nest.

I’ll honor its life at the altar of rosewood

With feathers I found on the ground.

Among the trees, it stands.

As a fixture to noble for religion,

It serves it purpose for consistency.

But despite my generously selfish longings

Gently bubbling over within me in the manner of a brook after a week’s worth of cold autumn rains,

I am under oath.

For these vows I’ve spoken

To no one but myself,

I would become the martyr,

Terrified,

Of dying alone,

Though I long for what I fear

(Contradictions hold nothing on the truth).

I would rather go forth

Alone, on an empty heart

Then wear the label

(In bright red lettering across my belt)

“WHORE.”

For red is the color of the sluts

And what they stand for,

Which is nothing but the only thing they have to lose:

Virginity?

Or is it dignity?

But aren’t the wild roses that grow in the wood also red?

“Avoid the shadows,

Walk in the light,”

The starlings whispered to me as I walked

Through the grass still wet from the dew,

In a patch of sun,

Solitary, safe,

In between the trees.

Alone,

And I have faith in consistency:

Never one glance,

Never one look,

Specifics vanish into the dawn.