  AUTUMN That empty shell sitting on the table; the exoskeleton shell of that bug left on the table counter waiting for the wind to pick it up and throw it god knows where is me Brown, brittle and crisp like a fallen leaf on the ground snapped underneath my feet as I cross the street. One false move, or a snap of a butterfly's wing, and I, the shell, am crushed to dust brushed off the Formica with a sponge. That beetle making its exit across the kitchen floor into the crack in the wall leading to freedom filled with greener grass and white picket fencses is you. And I let you do it too. That's a turn we never saw coming, the beetle and the skin; the wanting to be a shell of a thing hallow and delicate begging to be crushed, but the trees all shed their leaves in the fall and the leaf welcomes death like an accepting mother letting her child into the world.
We rake them into piles like it was nothing ignoring the grave suicide of nature. That row of trees there growing side by side each shedding its summer weight for thinnes of winter shaking every bit of excess is us. Bare boned, barely breathing, taking in slow breaths, conserving energy through the cold without mittens and scarves wrapped around our trunks courageously baring the brunt of the world naked. 
