No more chasing daylight out of the woods for neurotic comfort,

Looking ahead – feet walk me backward. There is no one before me to come looking willingly.

There will be no one to miss.

They lost me to the forest.

Dark autumn, behind the blood-wolf moon where the icy winds blow;

Show the way!

To where branches can hold me;

fold in on me.

One-by-one.

Shielding my heart from your cold winter mood.

With no harm to my delicateness – As promised,

but you are so willing to tenderize my strength.

Here there is no one to need.

Not even you.

You, too, lost me to the forest.

Here is where I can break;

Loud and ugly

without love or obligation to self-sacrifice acid tears.

Going deeper where it’s darker;

To where distractions are myths of lore for the forest to share between trees.

It’s time—my cliche moment to burying myself in the fallen autumn leaves.

I can decay here.

Be sad and beautiful,

A void and a hope.

Fetal and quickening underneath with the roots,

Planting seeds for beautiful scenes to grow

Nourishing the afterlife for the new.

And, I won’t emerge till at least spring

with stories that bloom as mushrooms.