Unmade

Good morning, she whispers into the predawn dusk, and I only just have time to piece together where I am and how I should be reacting before she stands at my bed with childlike eagerness. My weather app says it's beyond cold, says winter is here but I'll soften the blow with some sunshine. I sit in the window basking, eyes closed, heart open. There is much work to be done, so much work to be done, but some mornings it feels quite enough just to have survived, just to be living. 

I take a deep breath into the upstate day. Write all your words, he says. There's nothing like the freedom that comes after the explosion, nothing like the relief after the fire you feared is over.