Cider-Stained Sleeves

You say you want to see fall from my perspective, 
and I laugh, thinking of every maple tree 
I’ve leaned against, 
hands stained by apples split open, 
the cider I’ve spilled on my sleeves. 
The fields that swallowed me whole 
under the weight of golden leaves. 

The air is sharp, 
and I tell you how you’d like it here, the cold, 
the woods that grip your ankles, 
the branches that loom 
until your breath fogs the sky, 
until you can taste the earth turning breakable. 

You said, show me, 
like I could even remember 
every trail I used to follow, 
every hill I used to call my own. 
You want to see it, 
the way you think I do, 
crisp and fleeting, 
like I haven’t already made peace 
with losing it. 

You talk about seeing the world, breathless,
listing places like people you barely know,
Paris, Florence, Vienna, Lisbon.
And then you add,
and wherever you want to go,
like my name is already pressed
into the bark of every tree we pass.

Most people are wrapped in their somedays,
but you talk like we’ve already happened,
like I’m woven into your cozy sweater,
like it’s already impossible to imagine the frost without me.

And you still want me to show you every part
of this place that held me,
not as a visitor, but as someone who’s always belonged,
with leaves in our hair and cider on our tongues,
as if fall has been waiting for us all along,
together.