apple cider

I want to drink apple cider with you

Like it’s a fine wine,

Make-believe adult, wrapped in your wool blanket,

Counting the minutes until your parents return.

I want to walk into school together, 

Hold your hand between classes, talk into the night

Until our throats are scratchy and the sky melts into blue-black,

Wake up 

To find my phone overflowing with your texts. 

I want to watch you play soccer, set against

A backdrop of multicolored hills, turned sepia

In the fading light,

And hug you afterwards, showing everyone

That you’re mine.

I want to hear your mother tease you

In a language I don’t understand

As we carve pumpkins, their slimy insides

Staining your kitchen counter, the playlist

I made for us soft in the background. 

I want to watch Gilmore Girls with you, 

Because finally, now that cold is 

Seeping into everything, it’s the season for it. 

I want autumn

To no longer be about death, but birth:

Your sideways smile, raking your fingers

Through your hair and laughing at me, the sky

Crisp and cloudless. I want delicate days

Of feeling feminine and light,

I want you to look at me and not see an old soul.

I want to smell October in your sweatshirt and forget

That none of this is real.