Cake

Summer is over, the voice rambles, as if we didn't already know by the fire of the leaves. You spend your days pushing new parts of your psyche into the darkness, as if challenging it to move, to surprise you, a game of chicken that no one wins. New voices speak to you across the ether and you see yourself building layers between the rivers, protecting what feels frail, and you don't know why. 

In all these years, after all, you've never broken. But the foam protection couldn't keep you from bruising, so why do you insist on wrapping it around you? 

The trees on Second Avenue turn yellow, bright, beaming, blissfully ignorant of their impending death. The country reels from the last few turns of a mad man's merry-go-round, how long can you be sick to your stomach before you forget you ever felt well? This year asks that question a hundred times. We eat cake and celebrate another unusual birthday, it's a good thing we cannot see into the future, we would never get out of bed. You are determined to keep getting out of bed. 

Summer is over, you repeat to yourself, as if willing your spirit to stand up against it. The pharmacist jabs the needle into your arm, says record numbers this year. You think the great gift of humanity is proving itself wrong in the face of such devastating mistakes. 

You always get another chance to do choose to do it better.