This day, as winter dies -
cold, and heartless, and exposed - a December which lingers
and feels no shame in subduing me.
It was in January that I was bad; slipping back to ghostly fingers
spectres in the eyes of him, me, you -
others around us that let their busy laughter sit on the roads like mist.
The lonely chattering of teeth under scarves, hot conversations wet with breath dew
Quick thoughts. Openly sad. Feelings persist.
A layer of sleep coated my fingers, my hair. My cold feet.
And beneath my gloved hands danced anothers' thoughts I struggled to know.
Slipping quietly into a slower body; sleeping under a layer of snow.
Soon, I promise, I will get better again. As winter dies.

I wake up like this;
toothache, slowly, sweating and
over the covers.

Speak lowly of me
if you think I did you wrong.
I change names often.

Though I'm not hiding,
my movement mimics prey and
gives thanks to hunters.

Seasonal regards.
I can't get it off my mind
so I sleep like this.

What does Santa have to do with Jesus
Or an egg-laying rabbit for that matter.
People who think this crap up must be
As mad as Lewis Caroll’s Mad Hatter.
I mean, these same store owners
Got those stories from somewhere.
Then put them out generously for
Gullible parents so freely to share
With kids grown greedy by the lack
Of parental care and nurturing
Not to mention pablum, for real
As the family thing was rupturing.

Where did that rabbit come from?
It never made sense at all to me.
How did those ******* up genetics
Get dragged into the nursery?
It defies belief that anyone over eight
Ever bought in to the silly tale.
It was always so obvious to me
That it was all to make a sale.
So, first there was fat man and sleigh
Flying at blinding electronic speed.
With ungainly flying reindeer as
What passes for valiant steeds.

Next we have a bunny who hides
Millions of gaudy hard boiled eggs
Then apparently hops right off
On some very confused short legs.
Did I leave out the Tooth Fairy?
Now, that is a real piece of work.
I really believed that pillow thing.
My god was I ever a young ****!
There might be someone else besides
Fecund rabbit, fat men and a fairy.
If they hadn’t brainwashed us so early
This whole mishagas would be scary.

So warm with subtle life.
Rolling desert hills and splotches of green.
I loved your plains.
Oh, the tanned beauty.

But I, from the north east,
could never predict the drought.
For seasons don't change in the desert,
and rain rarely falls upon the plains.

I was going through the terms.
All the snow, and changing of leaves.
You watched with great admiration.
And your dry surface cracked.
And I knew you could never freeze.

Nothing is more chilled
than slanted sunrays through pines
trembling with want

Nor nothing worse than
the young cardi’nals trilling
out to the white trees

Voices unfalt’ring
answered only by echoes
of forgotten spring

Cold, thick powder snow
blithely reminds us of the
small, white spring hen eggs

that, forever lost,
cracked among the ****-strewn straw,
oozing into earth—

and I think of you,
whispering back to the birds,
just as lost as they

waiting for pre-spring
dew to unfreeze from the grass
that you may lap it

with painful blue eyes
like black-stripped and impish jays,
looking down on all.

I'm still miserable.

don't get me wrong -
there are pauses, and there are breaks.
there are beams of light, there are glimmers of hope
and there are days where happiness is so golden,
I can practically feel it salting on my tounge,
dancing in my brain
and some small part of me almost begins to believe that
things have changed -
it's going to be better now.

but of course, night is still well and alive,
in it's deathly gloom.
and of course, the petals always plunge through
in a sickening cold snap
and I am brutally reminded that
spring
is just season, not a way of life.

and although the why is given a different name -
boys, alcohol, displacement, bad job -
i find myself surrending to the currents
that is winter days, where sunlight
burns to cold, midnight ash within a few hours.
every few weeks or so, the darkness returns
pinching out the flame that i had spent so much time trying to reignite and
oh, not again.

but again and again, the night falls,
the stars spiraling out of place until
the cold and the heaviness have anchored in my chest
like a yawning need for eternal day -
I'm suddenly left wondering if i should even fight it.