July 20th. I remember because it was the anniversary of when man first stepped onto the moon. That's how I felt, too, sharing in the reflected glory of a first step. You know, that's how I felt, too. A first step, tumbling forward into a dark unknown, expecting nothing sharp (abrasive? caustic? no). The first of it was well descending into true nothingness, too. Have you ever closed your eyes while you fell asleep and drifted away from your body? Have you ever closed your eyes while falling in love and lost hold of the hand you so tightly once held?
October won't come back.
May 17th. I remember because it was the last day I wore my sleeve on my sleeve, that outward expression of discretion and chastity now stripped away and thrown, more regurgitated from revulsion, really, into the passenger's seat as I drove away. What was it about the face looking back at me. Was it really a mirror, or perhaps a painting? And what would a painting look like if it weren't also a mirror? Either way, I drove away from that place and knew I had lost a breakfast joint forever. I'll never go there again as long as I live, nor never wear the chain forged for me (by me).
October has left me. Oh, it's written down someplace or other. I could go look it up, search through texts, hunt down journals, find traces of old faint lines now erased by sun-fading into thought-shadows litter. October exists. But I have left it, and I haven't lived an October since. You know, two years ago I was on a bicycle nearly every day of the month and even so couldn't reconcile that I rode past a place where I once saw god in October. I couldn't make sense of the cyclical nature of the month. Found in October, lost in October, remembered in October, alive in October. The whole month has the resonant frequency of play-acting fear, but its bell tolls brash brass, for me. I'm done with it.
I renounce October. Flee me.
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