Expiration is not my desire. 'Autumn Tree' by Jay Cool To don an orange wig is not to wear a portent, or to be tree laden with oranges midst autumn leaves of speckled brown, muted tan or luminous yellow; a sign of the seasons, confused, muddled and merging into one. For years and years, I have grown wild, have come close to splitting the stitches that bind me to the wishes of others, of people not my own, of people not myself. There is bewilderment as you read the thoughts of an eccentric, as I reach out and grow my tendrils around and beyond my crumpled purple hats, so that my fringe is tentacled to the electrifying clouds of rainstorms. How hard it is to carry scores of the critical corrections of cowboy bosses on my back, and still to stay compact, within the seams that contained my compulsion to crackle on. Nonetheless, there is a place above the rainstorms, where my crusty poetry lives and grows, a place still inhabitable by the parts of myself t...
