Ode To November 1st//October 32nd, 2025

I woke up this morning still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly lit porch. 

My heart and soul are always searching for the glowing pumpkins, the skeletons, the spiderwebs...

It can't really be over, can it? 

How can something be seasonal when it feels so much like home? How can the version of the world without the pumpkins and skeletons and spiderwebs, be considered the real one?

How can October only be 31 days? How can last night feel so long ago and like seconds ago at the same time?

I walk through the neighborhood and I hear the leaves fluttering behind me. They sound like urgent footsteps, running and running as if begging October not to forget them.

If I chase after them, can I go to? To wherever it is October goes when it's gone?

The word November has always hit me like a ton of bricks. It sounds like a door closing, the end of a chapter in a book where a beloved character dies. 

A solemn reminder that it's all over. Halloween, October...all just a memory now.

I feel like I've been startled awake from the sweetest dream...and I woke up still a trick-or-treater searching for a brightly lit porch. 

But sadly, the lights have all gone out. On the houses, in my eyes, in my soul. 

The 364 day countdown begins anew.