November

By William Owen

Miles of road pass by

shared in conversation

spent watching you sleep

Jack,

whom I love having never met

talks about this thing we share.

I have become November.

You sleep in equative lip biting slumber

hugging a pillow you think is someone else.

The cold season moves slowly

approaching backing away

drifting around my island

coming closer in the darkness

as I burn a fire high, with wet leaves.

The lanterns of the bow drift away in the twilight

with dawn

pale and misty

I stare at an ocean.

I have become November.

Nice is last at the end

of the year

time pushes forward

ever onward beyond the cellar door

There is no time to stop

there are more doors to open

In the rain I pace back and forth

Not knowing which way to turn

I have become November

With time I've begun to think

but the timing isn't nice

And I sit in the halls of idea sleeping

dreaming of being a son to a father

instead of a half complete orphan.

I wake up under a female star

smile

turn to my electric connection

trying to hold those impulses of subconscious

from sliding into the depths of the rainwater shadow.

In the headlight covered rain

I return to the presence of my imagination

believing I have driven away

I have become November

I answer questions that lock me away

with no reason I cannot find freedom

Feeling myself, happened upon

day after day

Disbelieving the winter that is approaching

I hold steel to my abdomen without faith

Rains fall slowly around the world

surrounding me the rain hurts

I have become November

Delayed lies to live, compound

to hold out choked hands which fail

to restrain

Standing room thoughts

from generating tight lipped tears in waiting

For creation there are no words

until dawn breaks to draw forth stifled air

and a murder of crows

Hardly knowing enough

speaking only in fragments

I have become November

Denied winds run red lights

sit in bars drinking, trying to capture brown bubbles

of brew

Meekly feeling a new need to be useful

I cannot care anymore

is it the finger or forgetfulness

that puts a monster in a cage

when he fears being free.

Living day to day, loving as little as possible

laughing out of spite

outdated, offensive and objectable

put on the curb the day after pickup

I have become November

Waiting the past returns

and it should it is never so far

that it cannot reach out with sharpness too draw

across flesh

In the dark, wetness suggests blood

saltiness confirms it on the tongue

and still it is early

It happens

not how I imagined

while the 11th month draws to its end

strong winds return

The cold season marches at last in the late hour

I am warm

you are soft

I have become November.

Bio: William Owen grew up in Angelica NY and received a BA from SUNY Geneseo. Currently an MFA in Creative Writing Student with Goddard College William lives in Rochester as a writer, teacher, editor, and comic book creator. His work has appeared in anthologies, Imprint Journal , The Goddard Review , and a forthcoming Hazmat Review .