You Killed the Flowers

At the first, we were enemies.

I hated you for all you took from me.

You stole my flowers, my languid afternoons lounging beside the pool, the bite of summer sun on my skin– a heat that warmed me to the corners of my soul. You hid away the sunset behind blankets of mist and gloom. You crushed the ripeness of blackberries in your wicked palm, leaving behind nothing but stains of purply hue: shadows for evil deeds to hide amongst. You encroached upon my blissful ignorance, my late-night car rides with warm wind whipping my hair. The shiver of your touch gripped the breath of song from my lungs, wrenching away my notes of joy, and leaving seeds of crystalline dread instead. A silence. A heaviness. A death and deliverance into darkness.

I mourned for all I had lost, all you had ripped away, and I fell into despair, blown away on the wind like the last of summer’s dandelion wishes.

That’s when I saw it.

That’s when I saw you, cloaked in your regal robes of curdling red– exactly the color of the maple leaves that fluttered softer than a song to the dampness of earth. And I realized, now that the brightness of summer wasn’t straining my eyes, I could really look at you.

You. were. Beautiful.

I felt you steal into my heart, then.

The searing heat of summer was replaced with the slow bloom of a candle flaming to life in the darkness. The flame flickered as I breathed in all of your scent: the sweetness of fermenting fruit underlain with a heavenly rot. You showed me then, that my heart was not for the flowers. My heart was for you, in all of your splendor. You killed the flowers, but you turned the trees to glory. A million shades of warmth and wonder in synchrony with naked branches greeting a sunrise sky. You brought me clouds and raindrops to dance along my skin. You swallowed up all that was summer in a tide of mud puddles and rivers roaring back to life.

When you delivered the day into darkness, you played a light show across the clouds, giving me sunset shades that summer had never once shown me.

You. It was you. Always you.

You gave me night. And I fell into you, curling beneath blankets together and watching the light of a moon so overripe it must certainly burst– but it didn’t. You painted the world in long, moonlit shadows and dead things whispered to me from beneath your cloak. But I was not afraid, because I was with you, and you knew me, even before I loved you. You waited patiently for me to fall out of love with summer, to fold into you, home, at last.

And now that I’ve seen you, I will never love another. For who could offer so much as you? Who could speak to my shadows the way you do? Who could chill me to the bone and heat me in embrace like you? There is none for me but you.

You, October, have stolen my heart, now and forevermore.