Day 16: a poem about fall, and mind palaces, and trees

write a poem, they said.
write another poem about fall.
I already HAVE, I think.
I don't think I have any more, hidden away in the nooks and crannies of my brain.
I'm empty - I've given all I have to give.
you can only describe the crispness of the air
and the odor of the leaves
and all my favorite things about fall
so many times. there are only so may words for it.

But then I think of my writing place.
its in my mind palace,
where I go mentally even when
I can't be there physically.

I built my little office in the corner of my being.
its a little shady, with
warm grey walls and
photos of every good memory I've ever had
strung across the walls.
there's a hammock for when I need to just curl up and cry
there's a tree that has a reading nook
and a branch that forms a bookshelf.
the leaves turn red when I need a whiff of autumn.
sometimes it will even lose those leaves
if I need some winter.

and in the corner of the corner,
there's a little desk
with a little computer
with the perpetually open Word document
that forms the journal of my life.

and when I sit at that little desk, I'm in a
sweatshirt and stretchy jeans
and I can sit with slumped shoulders and criss-crossed legs
and I don't have anywhere to be
my mind calms
and all I can hear is that slight sigh of the tree in the corner
and my own thoughts.
and those thoughts say:

write.
keep writing.
even when you don't have anything left.
because writing keeps you sane
writing tells you what you think because its
your own words on the page.

in the fall time trees lose their leaves,
and they catch that glimpse of themselves on the ground.
they see the front of foliage they are presenting.
they see their face.
and while they are not able to change the way their leaves will look in the spring and even next fall,
you can.
you can look at your writing and decide what you want
to edit
and change
and DO with it.
you can decide what you want it to look like.
you can decide what YOU want to look like
because your writing is a reflection of you.
your writing is your ability to step outside yourself and
look inwards to discover who you are
and then edit.
trees do it.
they edit every. single. year.
they lose everything but their core.
and when the spring comes, they regrow
EVERYTHING.

I can't help but wonder
what is wrong with this method?
nothing. nothing about it is bad.
what we absolutely have to have,
we should save in our trunk.
we should make those things our core,
letting them engrain themselves in us
(pun intended)
and the rest
the worries, the problems
the stuff we hold onto for no reason
and the stuff that weighs us down:
we should let go of those. we should shed our leaves
and let the snow cover them up
and then in the morning, we should start writing again.
in the spring, we should grow new leaves.