There is Pleasure in the Pathless Woods

Sometimes I wish I could meet the first leaf to fall at the changing of the season

And let them know that they aren’t a failure

I have fallen more times than I can count, even more times than I can remember

I’ve drifted in the wind going nowhere, like a tumbleweed across a desert street

I’ve crunched and broken beneath the weight of others walking over me

I felt the need to curl up and shrivel, a shredded fraction of what I use to be

Having once been part of a larger, towering titan

Now isolated, unrecognizable, terrified of where I’ll be raked up

Or what book I’ll be pressed in.

I would tell the leaf that, in time, at some point,

Ever single leaf will feel what they feel. Every single one will fall at some point.

And that’s okay. That’s nature.

If the leaf never falls, then the world isn’t moving

Falling. Failing. It’s all the same.

Just a mark

Of the changing of the seasons

Of the changing of yourself.

Survive the winter

And thaw into a metamorphosis