You Scare me like my Favorite Holiday (from fall)

When the final act of the summer
Bleeds into a fair weather fall
That was always our time to shine
In between twilight and midnight
In between rock-hard doorways
And loose-leaf autumnal, burning
Red poetry

My untrusting hips caught like a calf
Between the protective barbed wire
Of your calloused hard-working hands
The faint beating of my heart as silent
As every held-breath in a horror movie
Intermingling of fear and butter and salt

A Halloween murder mystery
Two victims two villains
Too many times to count
How intensely you ravished me
We never carved our names into an oak tree
That I know of, but God damn
I can leave notches in your bedpost like nobody’s business

I wanted to be the queen of your damned
Handmade headboard

I wanted your Giants jacket draped over
My pale shoulders, instead of
The weight of the world
I wanted to have everything
To know everything
But I didn’t have a clue

I’m sorry, it was me who killed this
Miss Always Right
With a body like a revolver and an attitude like a lead pipe
In the living room in your work boots
That careless killer smirk
And wearing nothing else