She can't explain

She can't explain it. Why tea tastes different when it's not in the right mug. Why she has some warm and nostalgic association with the smell of tobacco smoke even though no one she's loved or lived with has ever been a smoker. How a walk in the woods can unknot and unleash every hard thing in her. How it can make her feel completely at peace or bring her to tears. Why she never has a handkerchief when she needs one.

She can't explain why she loves dying leaves and wet pavement. How a lemon-tinged sunset in a pearl  winter sky reminds her of turning 12. How she got to be so round when she used to be so lanky. Why it doesn't bother her anymore.

She can't explain why she reads her horoscope when it never rings true. Why she owns a deck of fortune cards. Why she woke up one Sunday and realized she'd never go to church again.

She can't explain what she hopes to find when she checks her e-mail. What she is looking for on social networks. The way she can be so loquacious one day and so reserved the next. How she'd rather live without a phone than live without her camera. Why it's so easy to cut some things loose without regret or debate and so hard to let others go.

A horror story for grown-ups: The last day of the October of our discontent

Photo by my Grrrl. More of her work at http://morethanwonderlust.tumblr.com/

The air feels grainy with disappointment. Fear is in the bones that step out of our bodies and unsteadily walk away.

We are divided. We have no support. We collapse.

Or we remain upright and plod through our days like zombies trying to find a way back to the way things were. We are the walking dead pushing ourselves forward, our eyes open but unseeing, craving something we can't explain, knowing nothing is going to fill the void where our hearts used to beat.

There's blood on our hands and blood in the street. We are oppressed and guilty all at once. We huddle together to protest our depression and share some warmth. It is cold within and without. The fire in our bellies is hunger, not passion. Words fail us. Is anyone even listening? Do we even know each other?

We numb our minds with vapid media and faux drama to avoid the pain of the reality behind our front doors and beyond our borders. Uncertainty looms like a vast sticky web ready to hit us in the face should we wander. We don't want to become entangled and trapped, but we are trapped anyway, paralyzed by inertia and indecision.

Tonight skeletons and zombies and spiders will knock on our doors. We will feed our fears candy and smiles, and then when our reserves are empty, when there is absolutely nothing left to offer, we'll extinguish the lights, and sleep the sleep of the damned and be damned.

 Photo by my Grrrl. More of her work can be seen at http://morethanwonderlust.tumblr.com/