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The Fall

Posted on April 28, 2022May 1, 2022 by Cindy Tran

By Lily Mayo

You live in October. Warm sunlight drizzling down into your coffee, sweet like caramel. The cinnamon breeze spices the froth— a sprinkle of crimson powder. You brace the cup between your knees, slumped against the bow of an oak tree, an old book, the aging paper pressed between your fingers. The Polaroid braced against your corduroy pants, the vintage headphones draped around your neck. 

You live in October. Church bells ring from white washed steeples. You unravel your scarf, shivering as you slide into an empty pew. Your head is bowed, eyes on the apsis transfixed on the cross. You put your hands together, for warmth, not prayer. Make the sign of the cross at the doors then push past them. Past the graveyard’s unmarked stones as crimson leaves fall. Your heavy boots thud against rain-slick roads. 

You live in October, but there you stay. There you stay like a ghost, like a haunting voice in the back of your mind. A constant reminder of the happiness you felt when your skateboard carried you to the edge of concrete and sea. Before you shouted at the dull-grey sky: Fuck You! Emphatically. An echoing prayer. As the waves softly crash. You never found God in the preacher’s drowning services, but here in the sea salt air—

You suppose it’s called fall because your mind plummets into the icy waters of madness. An old book floats, pages sodden. A skateboard, upturned, wheels still rolling, there, on the sea wall, in October. 

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