As the crisp air makes itself as thin as possible to fit in between the spongy holes of my bone marrow, I am left speechless at how intensely she pursues me. She is beautiful. Autumn is a damsel. But the only distress in sight is the kind that she demands to go far, far away from me.

I can feel the seasonal depression of summer lift off of my being like a thick cloud evaporating after a rattling storm. The coolness washes me new. All the heaviness of weighty and sultry summer trickles down my spine as the heat takes its rightful place in the rearview mirror. Drip. Drip. Drip. Until every drop of fury and frustration leave my body. I am shining in the dimness of Autumn.

She is selfless enough to let me glow brighter than her. That is how much she loves me.

That is the joyous sensation she brings me. I am left speechless. It appears as though she does this just for me. Just so I can finally live. She watches me suffer in summer and resuscitates my soul as fast as she can. She jumps over my weak body and blows a breath of icy air into my lungs, and I breathe as if I've never breathed before. She asks the earth permission to dim the lights and hues and aggression so I can respire peacefully. So I can finally inhale and feel something.

The warmth of browns and rusts and earthy greens remind me how close I actually am with mother nature. How nothing within her blooms all year round, so I don't have to either. I can wait for my season. I can wait for autumn. April showers bring May flowers and everyone has high spirits in the sun, but not me.

They don't know me. Not like my Autumn.

She has a frigid way of loving me that is irresistible. No matter how far I run away, she still finds access to my existence. She still takes over me. Because she loves me. She is beautiful. The leaves fall and the grass dies and the creatures go into hiding because she is so overtly fierce that they cannot handle what she cannot contain.

The whole earth sleeps so I can finally be awake. So I can flutter my icicle eyelashes open and finally do more than just be a shell of a body. Covered in sweat and anxiety-ridden thoughts of wishing I could melt away in the summer heat. But now it's autumn, so I do not have to. She breaks open this shell and wildflowers and sunbeams and honestly and euphoria burst out of me. What once was hard is made soft again in the season of second chances.

Autumn wakes me up every morning with tenderness and cool compassion, she tucks me in bed with sweet dreams and soft kisses. She is beautiful. I savor every second, every minute with her is bliss. I am most me because of her. Does that make her a part of me? A thread in the fabric of my identity? I believe she is nothing short of that. She is there in my dreams and desires. In my personality. In my list of favorites and preferences. To you, she is a season. She comes and goes and you don't notice or thank her. But to me, she is the quintessence of my entity.

Always there, waiting to caress my skin and the precious parts of me I hide underneath it.

And that is the beauty of Autumn.