Nobody Leaves October Whole

You do not visit October.

You enter it.

It sits just past the edge of September,

down a road that only shows up once the light gets honest,

past a crooked sign that reads

Population: everyone who said they were fine last month.

Liar.

Come on in anyway.

Dress in layers, sweetheart. Trust nothing here.

Frost bullies the grass at dawn.

By noon the sun has talked you out of your coat.

By three the wind has stolen it and will not say where.

By supper it rains sideways just to win the argument,

and by dark the cold moves in so sudden

your bones file a formal complaint.

October cannot commit to a season, a temperature,

or letting you keep anyone.

Points for consistency, I guess.

Leaves fall the whole time you are here.

Not float. Not dance. Fall.

Gold ones. Red ones.

Brown ones already too tired to hold on.

The trees around here let go of what they love in public

and do not apologize for the mess,

and every street you walk is slick with wet leaves,

your steps gone soft and hushed,

like the whole town is trying not to startle its own grief.

Porch lights come on before dinner in October.

Not because night has earned it yet.

Because people are lonely earlier now.

Because a lit porch is a small town way of saying

we are still here, we are still trying, come home if you can.

Down one street a bonfire pops far off in the dark.

Somebody laughs. Somebody feeds it another log.

Nobody you love is close enough to warm your hands,

but the sound carries, and October counts that as mercy.

Now walk the houses. Slowly. This is the hurting part.

October is where the holiday homes start breaking early,

long before the company comes,

long before anyone has to smile across a table with a hole in it.

One house keeps writing a name on the Thanksgiving list,

crossing it out, writing it back in smaller.

The recipe still makes too much.

Nobody has the heart to teach it smaller hands are gone.

One house has a little boy carving two pumpkins.

One for this porch.

One to carry across town to his other porch,

because even his holidays have visitation now,

and he is too young to know that is a sentence

adults should be ashamed to make a child carry.

One house sets out his mug every morning anyway.

Her hands remember before her pride does.

She is practicing for the big table in the cold months,

practicing saying the blessing with his chair empty,

and some mornings October just sits with her

and lets the coffee go cold in both cups.

Good. Some grief should not be rushed.

And yes, there is a house you do not knock on.

End of the lane. Curtains closed. One pumpkin, uncarved.

Do not be cute. Do not be curious.

That loss is fresh and October respects a closed door,

even when people do not.

Past the last house, take the path.

It was not there in September. It is there now.

It cuts through woods that smell like rain and wood smoke and endings,

where the leaves come down so steady

you can hear time doing it.

Walk long enough and October will show you your own year,

every bright thing you held too tight,

every person you thought would stay green forever.

Cry if you need to. The trees have seen worse.

They are literally dropping pieces of themselves and standing there anyway.

That is the whole sermon in this place.

When you leave, and you will leave,

because nobody gets to live in October for good,

a wet leaf will stick to your shoe.

Smoke will ride home in your clothes.

November will start asking you to be thankful.

December will start asking you to be joyful.

And some of us are not there yet, are we.

October knows.

October does not fix the broken houses.

It just leaves a light on in every single one.