they slice feebly through the atmosphere,
at an angle far too steep for 3:00 pm:
these rays of fall sunshine that somehow
look so warm and feel so chilly, I mean
they skitter across the November grass
that grows in haphazard little rainy-season-clumps of lush green
I will never understand fall in California,
how it manages to feel something like fall after all
the rains are coming and I can smell it on the breeze
I will need that blanket and that cup of tea,
please,
I will need late night talks and staring out the window for a time
and I will need some silly jokes
and some long, long runs that numb my body and my mind
some friends and I decided that being an adult
is not what you thought it would be
you stay the same, and stay the same
but then you look back and realize that something surely must have changed
because this is not the same as that
and you didn't even know you were on a path from there to here
the thing is:
time will never cease to push you,
but you have to keep yourself facing forward
otherwise you get lost, or you move backward,
or you end up in the middle of nowhere
this time next year will suddenly feel like fall again
we can look at ourselves in the slanted sunlight
and try to decide how much we've changed
and which way we're going
