PeonyMagazine

  Dear Autumn, You always arrive with your arms full of reminders: rust-colored leaves at my feet, a sharper wind against my cheek, the way daylight pulls away earlier as if urging me to slow down. Every September, you find me reflecting on the seasons of my life, and this year, you’ve brought me back to my sister. When we were children, we treated you like a holiday, Autumn. We argued over who might claim the most beautiful orange leaf, crunched through your leaves, and challenged one another to jump into piles as though the world were ours to fall through. Daring, fearless, wicked, and sticky from caramel apples, my sister’s hand was always in mine. Back then, our disagreements were brief, our secrets were whispered into pillows and kept behind bedroom doors, and we were entangled like vines. But like your trees, we changed. Time stretched us thin, and adulthood scattered us the way the wind scatters leaves across an empty street. Now, when I think of her, I see us as two trees r...