Hunt for Good October

"It's the hunt for good October," I told my friend. Later that month, she asked if I'd found it. "I think so," I said. I totalled a car a few days later- it was a bad October.

"I can't believe this is happening," I said as we spun out of control and went through a large farm fence- twice. The car went down an embankment and stopped in the middle of someone's lawn. After a second, I looked to the passenger seat, afraid of what I might see. My friend looked back at me, there was blood on the side of her face.

"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I'm okay," she said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay," I replied and touched her cheek. "Are you okay?"
"Yea," she said. "I'm okay."

It's been a week and there's still a little bit of glass in my jacket pockets and some mud on the sleeves. I should wash it, I should be afraid to drive, I should have cried a little bit more since then. I can't, I just can't grasp what any of it meant- the big wooden posts jutting through the window, the blood on her face, the glass in my hair. All the times I've wanted to die, this was not it. Good October.

October. I think of my friend and of the first time I was in love- the girl named for the stars who never gave me a chance in hell. When the leaves turn orange I think of her green eyes and how perfect it could be to be 17 and in love and walking down a road in Amish country. I put my arm around her and pretended that she tensed up because it was cold. If there was never a chance in hell, then maybe there will be in heaven. If I still believed in heaven, I would let you know.

I still believe in October- in the chance that I can live again, that I can feel life rising in me, warming my lungs like an autumn sunrise. When the sun comes up in October, color is already waiting on the trees and the ground, in the water and the sky. Color lays dormant in me somewhere, I just need to turn around and face the sun.