Glue Stick

I’ve carried a glue stick around in my back pocket for years

Each fall I’d trust the purple-to-clear Elmer magic to keep the ginkgo leaves stuck on their branches

Each year it's like I've forgotten that that glue actually is really shitty and they hit the street despite my most desperate efforts like little missiles of precious time that rattles my bones with the clearest message that

it's happening again

Yellow piles lining my street didn’t make me want to light a cinnamon candle and write poems about how there’s a time for every season

They made me want to burn the whole tree down

I thought it was better to never see my neighborhood turn gold than to feel the leaves stabbing into my soles when it turned winter

My orange coat I’d wear through April sits in the back of my closet now

It's way too big now

I’d rather sweat drip down my back for an eternal Georgia July than feel the ache of realization that 

things will always change

Even when change feels like relief 

Even when change is cold ocean air scraping my lungs and bare feet in warm, dewy backyards

I realize how dumb that all sounds now 

I threw all my glue sticks away

Now I like how yellow leaves find their place under the feet of people going somewhere

Or maybe they're just walking

Either way, maybe it's a good thing that glue is so shitty

Things being the way they are rarely compare to how they could be