Crumb

Ice rain, late morning, the dog looks like a bad day and you have to face so many West Village dog owners with their perky Sunday morning jokes. You're not even wearing clothes under that parka. Slush climbs past the lip of your boots and freezes your skin, your bones, but something in your chest shatters like an icicle.

You know it is the time of year, you know it is the dark and the cold and the way earth lies dead, waiting. You see years and years of winter pages crying ink pleading for it to be over. You know by heart to count down the weeks, days, hours until sunlight returns, until you can remove the heavy, wet cloak from over you and breathe again, your spine reminds you to hold on, hold out, just a little longer and claw your way forward, not give in, not let the soil bury you, not give up even when it seems like such a welcome relief and a better option than staying alive (if that is what this is). You dig your nails into your skin to feel your place in the world still. This is you now.

Pray it is not you, later.