Autumn Leaves in December

This room, this girl, these hands.

Everything is just the same and as it should be and the usual balancing amount of chaos clings to the corners of everything I touch.

Just as well, as this is how I choose to live.

A different feeling looms over me today, but it is not the hulking shadow of fear; it is more like the creeping path of the rising sun, eventually reaching the zenith to cast a beautiful ray on my forehead.

It's something unpredictably out of place in my usual flurry of actions that is the touchstone to my days and, inevitably, the key to my still-beating heart.

My ballet flats beat to the time of the canned Muzack fluttering about in the background as I sat in those plush, overstuffed chairs waiting for another hurdle to be cleared in this mad rat race I've chosen to participate in.

The slowly rotating Christmas tree caught the flourescent light, ridding it of its dull pallor and breaking the glow into a thousand tiny silver sparkles as the silver tinsel reflected across my eyes.

The entire room dripped of holiday cheer and of the rushing winter that would soon engulf me with chapped lips and dry lungs.

However, a smear of burnt orange caught my wandering eye, searching for something out of the ordinary to comfort me.

One lone leaf topped a black pen, speaking of the season past and valiantly defying the sickeningly excessive amount of fake snow, jewel toned spheres and Mariah Carey carols.

That touch of autumn evoked a kind of soaring joy that only you can relate to, as I was like a lone leaf panning across your vision, blown in from the west.

I twirled around and settled on your shoulders, and instead of chalking it up to fate, you stared up at the sky and remembered.

Comfort washed over me as I rose and ran my fingers over the false fibers that made up the cloth leaf and I remembered.

I remembered how all our actions, no matter how arbitrary and out of place they may seem, may make all the difference.