autumn hair

i always want to be alone until i am.
in these revolving door days
you cannot give me what i cannot hold in my pulling hands.
i would leave it alone
though i do not know if i can
nor care if i will.
one can only hope
that it is enough
but reason is telling me that we will not come out on top.
sometimes what we keep in our hearts
are merely the blurry things we hope for
and the against-our-better-judgement wants.
i stay up through the night
as i cannot endure a day
without finding single strands of your autumn hair
clinging to my fading clothes
as if you plucked them and placed them when i did not know.

A recovering alcoholic, bulimic and poet whose work has appeared in Wingless Dreamer, Coffee People Zine and Burgeon, Bradley James McElligott was born and raised in the suburbs of Oshawa Ontario, Canada at the local skateparks and dive bars. To deal with mental illness, frequent freakouts and mistakes made growing up, he now writes about them.