Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting
for the leaves to turn a more respectable brown,
a more personal yellow,
a more misplaced red,
then I look down and find them in a million pieces on my shoelaces.
It makes me want to stay up all night
and fix my gaze on a certain tree,
carve my name in the bark,
light a million candles around its trunk.
but then the wind would simply blow
and a leaf would simply fall,
cautiously brush the fire and burst into flame.
It's magic,
then it's gone.
It's a good thing, though,
or the whole tree would burn.
And you know how these things spread.