I am an endless cliché of forgetting to bring a coat.
It is winter everywhere I go.

This war has raged longer
than I have been living.
I wait for you in quiet, barely moving.
If I stir, I’d shatter hope.

I’ve blue lips, snowflake hair.
Winter mistakes me for her
mirror. I don’t correct her.

In this old house, there is a fireplace
in every room. I drift from hearth to hearth
like a ghost. I do not go into closets,
corners. They are too cold for paper skin.
I’d rather catch fire. Rather burn.
But only the living get heat.

It is winter everywhere I am.
You are summer, and can’t come back.

—

Photo taken in NYC, the day after the first snowfall of the season.

All my heart.

xx,
Meg.