I was born on October 20th. I am a daughter of autumn, a sister of October, and every year I feel the electricity of October’s magic. This is why I’m hoping to write 10,000 words of new poetry next month. It’s not only a precursor to NaNoWriMo, it will also be a means through which I can explore the magic I feel so strongly in the weeks of my favorite month of the year.

I’ve written out a list of themes I’d like my poetry to cover next month. Most of them are continuations of what I wanted to work on for Camp NaNoWriMo in July, but there are additions now. Autumn; fog; All Hallows Eve/Samhain; trees; autumn animals; rain; falling leaves; harvest; and myself in all of it, myself moving through it, channeling it, receiving it. These poems will, I think, be rituals. Prayers. Incantations. They will be runes. Prophecy. They will be in the language of my soul. They will carry magic.

I’m still learning to write my body. I’ve been reading poetry about bodies, about loss, about miscarriage and infertility. And I’ve been reading about the poetic line, it’s endings, alterations, continuations, and manifestations. I’m hoping to more closely understand the relationship between line and syntax. There’s actually another book I want to read soon about syntax, which is exciting.

I like studying poetry as a body of creativity because it gives me another lens through which I can understand my body. This is the first time since my second miscarriage that I’ve felt as though I’m really understanding the complications of my relationship to my body. I’ve felt lost inside of it, disconnected from it, for years. And even though I’ve healed from some of the trauma of my miscarriages, I don’t feel as though I’ve reconnected to my body. How do you reconnect to something that you blame for two of the greatest losses you’ve ever faced? However natural it was, whatever the implications of my safety, my body betrayed my wishes when I miscarried twice, and for that I have always seen my body as being separate from me. And now I’m finally in a place where I have the language to explore what that is, what it means, and how I feel about it.

I’m also still learning to write about my miscarriages and motherhood and the complications of carrying these losses alongside an immense desire to have children even though I also don’t think I really want children. It’s contradiction and parallel desires. And for the first time, I feel I’m accurately capturing the conflict, and hopefully in ways that will be meaningful and healing for others.

I still write about my marriage. I still write about heartbreak. I still write about my dating life. I still write about my sexuality. I write about everything that happens in my life because all of it is part of my story. All of it means I’m living life, learning lessons, and growing as a person, even when things hurt me. And if autumn/October has taught me anything, it’s that we need to lose our current leaves so that new ones can grow in the spring.