leaves_in_the_wind raze it's strange now. visiting the park. knowing you won't be there. i'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of moving through the world without you in it. the day you died, i asked you to give_me_a_sign. to try and find a way to tell me you were all right. to let me know i didn't fail you. you put a yellow leaf in my hair. i left it on the kitchen counter. when i came back to grab it and stow it somewhere safe, it was gone. i guess it wasn't mine to keep. the next day, the biggest piece of white fluff i've ever seen floated onto the tower my friends at home scale to be fed. it looked like it came from your tail. i let it leave my sight for as long as it took to blink. it disappeared. i asked you to keep sending me signals. one a day. i told you i would keep my eyes and my heart open. maybe that was selfish. but you delivered. a still-green maple leaf seemed to fall from a place no tree could have been. it spun around and marked the spot a friend i thought was dead would return to later the same day. another leaf like that one skidded onto the grate of the grill that serves as a shield to protect your grave. i didn't touch it. ten minutes later it was one layer deeper, down where the elements didn't have a say in what happened to it anymore. right above the place you were laid to rest. i had my first full walk without you on tuesday. when i came to the tree i always thought of as yours, it started raining small yellow leaves. hundreds of them. just like the one that wouldn't stay. they bounced off the brim of my hat and feathered my forearms. i tried to catch a few. nothing would stop moving long enough for me to make it mine. so we're all just small soft things that are slowly dying, caught up in the cyclone our collective breathing makes. trying to do our best before we drift away. i keep thinking about the way you looked at me the last time i saw you alive. it was the same look you gave me last winter when i stepped out of the park to grab a thicker pair of gloves from the car. you thought i was leaving. you dove between_the_bars of the gate and ran to my feet. your eyes burned into mine. i could feel what your voice couldn't say. "we didn't have enough time together." we had almost two years. it wasn't enough. and now i'm the one running after you. i took hundreds of pictures of you. i never caught you with your eyes closed. not once. i keep dreaming of squirrels every night. but none of them are you. after i found your body, an acorn glued itself to your hip. it wouldn't let go. we buried you with it still beside you. something about that felt right. i called you a little nut all the time. i thought about putting something of my own in the box we made your casket. something important. i couldn't think of the right thing to give you. i felt like i let you down. it took a while for it to sink in that i'd buried something of mine with you after all. a piece of my soul is tucked between your arms under that blanket of dirt. i used to fish the best walnut pieces out of the bag and save them for you. i called them newsom nuts. now i always keep one in my pocket. that way, when i see you again, i'll be ready. 221016 what's it to you? who go blather from