Back to Dust

Somedays, I miss things I shouldn’t miss.

Sometimes, I mourn things that never were.

When life knocks the wind out of me

I gather up the leaves, let go by the trees - 

all dying,

just to be seen.

Falling from grace

like unanswered love letters, burning red.

I gather them up

and release them to the wind that left my chest -

an offering to whatever shook the love out of me

and left me falling like the leaves.

They speak to me.

“Release me,” they whisper.

“Take me,” they scream to the wind.

Even if I fall to the ground in silence like the snow

let them know 

that I was grown from the courage of the seed that broke through the soil in the grave of my deepest depression.

I was born to be released back to dust.

I was born to flower,

and burn orange in the sunlight.

I was born to be touched by this life.

So in my prime,

“Let me go,”

they whisper.

I yearn to be like the leaves.

They know so much more than me.