a goodbye to winter

sticking snow and sonnets about sex

i’m looking back on the past three months and everything feels like i’m staring at it from the bottom of a pool. slightly distorted, mostly disorienting. unsteady, to say the least. i started this year with a declaration that i was going to be evil, that i was going to flirt with everyone and mean it. looking back, i’m not sure why i equated those ideas in my head. in the end neither of them really happened.

i spent the quarter writing filthy sad poems about a person i thought i loved just for a night. sonnets about sex and lines that were only half true. quick and dirty, as someone once said. i danced around ideas that felt honest in the moment, a little too vulnerable and maybe too naive. i always convince myself i’ve grown out of that habit, but in the end i’m still just looking for something to believe in.

winter was all waking up early, leaving in the dark. i always look forward to the cold, but once it comes i start to feel helpless. it snowed in our city for the second year in a row and i stayed the weekend in a house that wasn’t mine. feeling trapped and ashamed and crying for a reason i couldn’t quite figure out. eventually i came home to the snow sticking to the weeds in our backyard, just long enough for me to enjoy it on my own. of course, it melted in time.

i’m realizing a lot about the way i’ve been moving through the world, the way i’ve been letting people treat me. at some point i convinced myself i couldn’t feel beautiful unless someone was laying on top of me telling me i was. placing my perceptions in foreign hands. throwing the fragile thing. asking, how can i see myself reflected in you? will you be my mirror? i stared at the reflection so long that i lost my own image.

this year everything has felt like the ending of a cycle, the closing of a chapter. or maybe just a lesson. i saw someone i used to love in the grocery store then cried in the frozen foods aisle. but later i realized that the hurt doesn’t last like it used to. it was all so long ago that i’ve forgotten the feeling. maybe everything sticks just as long as it’s supposed to.

i’m hoping in spring i will be more present. take the lessons from winter and make something of them. break through the surface and breathe in the fresh air, pollen and all. i can lose things and understand that maybe that’s for the best. what goes around comes around, or whatever they say. you can’t force anything to stay longer than it’s meant to.