Apple Cider

I want to drink apple cider with you 

Like it’s a fine wine, 

Make-believe adult, wrapped in your wool blanket, 

Counting the minutes until your parents return. 

I want to walk into school together, 

Hold your hand between classes, talk into the night 

Until our throats are scratchy and the sky melts into blue-black, 

Wake up 

To find my phone overflowing with your texts. 

I want to watch you play soccer, set against 

A backdrop of multicolored hills, turned sepia 

In the fading light, 

And hug you afterwards, showing everyone 

That you’re mine. 

I want to hear your mother tease you 

In a language I don’t understand 

As we carve pumpkins, their slimy insides 

Staining your kitchen counter, the playlist 

I made for us soft in the background. 

I want to watch Gilmore Girls with you,  

Because finally, now that cold is 

Seeping into everything, it’s the season for it. 

I want autumn 

To no longer be about death, but birth: 

Your sideways smile, raking your fingers 

Through your hair and laughing at me, the sky 

Crisp and cloudless. I want delicate days 

Of feeling feminine and light, 

I want you to look at me and not see an old soul. 

I want to smell October in your sweatshirt and forget 

That none of this is real.