fall up.

These things cling to our skin under the autumn breeze.

I hear the Liberty Bell is breaking. Or broken, maybe, but the breaking itself is the painful part. I know someone who cuts out the soft cloth panels of his sneakers, between the sporty leather partitions, to make summer sandals.

I remember when you found a long skinny strip of receipt tape on our floor, covered in my inky words, lying as if waiting to be found, though I'd no such intention at all. I remember when Josh and Katy and I found a mound of mud in Louisiana, plunged broken sticks into it and ran while the fire ants came streaming out, dripping off the ends of the wood like flaming water, like vengeance.

Oh, geez. Natural disasters, oncoming clouds, cities we can't even see across for the smog. Things are pulling further and further apart. If you don't deadhead the flowers they might not bloom again. With all the energy in the upper realm they won't bother with roots at all. Who has time and attention for both at once, and who can even see what lies underground?

You are out of reach, far and again, and maybe for the best.