the breeze

and in it, the taste of autumn. On the first of September it storms twice and the wind blows and we get soaked just standing on the front porch and everyone comes out of their houses like something incredible is happening, like for the first time they think about thinking about god.

The first of September and already the breeze tells me it is time for the spice to cool, that the sweat and the strong hands and forward movement may slow. My shoes have worn all the way through. You sit on the balcony with socks on but no shirt and I start considering the benefits of cigarettes for the first time. We become obsessed with sewing patches to our clothes, less trying to prevent the inevitable than to look cool doing it. Bicycles become a necessity but my concepts of distance always change when I meet new people. I have driven so far from the blazing summer and the terrors of the thunderous river at night. I am covered in open wounds but I feel less vulnerable in the autumn. You listen to the same songs over and over again but never seem to tire of them. I've been having dreams where I wake up terrified thinking me and everyone we know has just been sentenced to a death where we drink two cups of poison and play cards, waiting to die and trying to think about our last words. The dreams make me think my subconscious is fucking with me and I wonder, what kind of storm is hiding in the changing of the seasons and when will the calm turn and what will it be? An upright explosion or a slow destructive tendency? I break out my softest sweater and open the window to the September chill so that tonight I may sleep, intact and curled beneath the quilt.