I rise beneath the gentle glow of witch lanterns, alive, throbbing against the palest skin.

I wait for a child to hesitantly slip through the small, iron gates of my spongy brain.

 

Her browned feet will move quickly across dying grass, and I will turn away

from her outstretched hands; she will offer them anyway upon golden arms:

 

plump little pears that nobody will eat, because it is a privilege not to.

 

Her mismatched fingers will weave the darkened strands of her hair with my own;

outstretched hands easing a cat’s cradle into the crook of a butterfly’s grave.

 

I tell her that I am not hers and most certainly, she is not mine

and her eyes will waver with a settled unfairness before they haze over,

 

blurring me from her golden existence.

The tree shakes the sunlight towards me.

Inhaling the world around us, I lean against her.