no one, not even the rain, has such small hands

i live under blankets these days, hibernating with tea and pumpkin pie and candles are everywhere and i can't stop writing love letters to autumn and everything smells like cloves and the light is always beautifully waning. changes in seasons of course make me remember all the times i've danced in leaf piles, mashing bits of yellow leaves into my hair, giving my hands permanent grass stains. six years ago emile said i love you for the first time just after i jumped into a leaf pile and spun and spun until i ran into him and it was so late at night and i was leaving for wyoming in a matter of days and everything was so happy and so sad and there was such finality in that beginning. thanksgiving, six years ago, i thought i was saying goodbye to the person who i thought was going to be my biggest loss. there was my first thanksgiving in college, when we all stayed in wisconsin, these new friends who became my family, and stuffed ourselves silly with tofurkey and drank wisconsin beer until we fell asleep on old corduroy couches that always smelled faintly of nagchampa and oranges and i forgot i was trying to patch up a relationship i had sabotaged. i remember so well waking up that next morning and eating leftover pie and taking a walk by the river and my roommate telling me, "let's write all about last night and put that paper somewhere safe so we'll never forget anything." there have been thanksgivings with our families for the first time and so much wine and laughing and remembering that as much as we fumble, as many mistakes as we make, as hard as we fall and as much as we bleed, there are times that we can say, as the last of the leaves fall and the trees become their old and crotchety selves, these are the people i love.