With Windchill

Morning is quiet, sunny, an icy wind dragging across the alphabet avenues. The city lies still, you breathe deep cold breaths into your lungs as your feet pound known pavements in sunrise. Large, old bridges span impossible waters, the city tells you stories while you run, how sweet the moment between you. We open the bourbon early, wrap ourselves in sweatpants and cinnamon scents, he writes from California to say your pie tin is in storage in New Jersey, and you make do with a cake pan. Some work-arounds are easy.

When the wine runs low, we bring out the holiday decorations, change the music. Life is long, and hard, and the days are cold, and dark eventually. But you don't have to accept everything just as it is.

Sometimes you can circumvent the real world,
sometimes you can rearrange the narrative:
give yourself a chance.