Reluctant.

Winter words slide down my tongue in sluggish slurs, reluctantly drunk on the cold of December

A season of merriment and joy is stained pomegranate red and weighs me down like damp snow packed on an aching roof, stiff from the frigid air

I am reluctant.

Everything is tugging at my dry skin like sandpaper snagging against the grain of a wood that has seen too many sad summers and empty winters

Everything is dry, dark, cold, hollow.

I am dry, dark, cold, hollow.

Curl me up into a ball and bury me deep beneath the frozen earth

And maybe, when the winter moon sets beyond the horizon

I will sprout through the soil, stretch my old bones, and begin again.

December, 2019