Snowdrop

And then one morning, everything had changed. I woke early, the blinds up, an odd light painted along the walls, I knew it was different. There was such a thick fog out, the city lay blind in the steaming snow, winter was lifting. By the time the bus sped down the hill that overlooks the Stockholm inlet, all that remained was a slight mist, the entire view looked like a giant Turner painting. I couldn't help but smile.

The days since have passed in a string of sunlit pearls. There is light when we wake, there is light when we close the office doors behind us. This sunshine has the power to pierce our veiled eyes. The children and I danced around the watered sidewalks and tried to uncover the singing birds, but really all we did was laugh. He writes to say I got words again, and I read and reread the sentence with such a whirl in my heart, because I know the feeling and it feels a lot like Life.

It begins now. The long days and singing heart. It begins now. Life.

the Violins

There was a moment today
as I stood outside work
in the beaming sunshine
in the thawing air
with a cup of coffee in my hand
and serenity on my face
and the snow melting around me
in long streams of steaming water,
that I felt your scent
on the wind
and the light blinded me

and I never wanted to go inside again. 

So Good

When at last I wake, I see the sunlight streaming at the edges of the sharply pulled blinds. I know it is out there. I awake sober, alone, my every muscle pains me merely because it is conscious, normally my Sundays are so numb in hangover. But I know, it is out there.

I drink coffee out of the giant tea mug; I have to heat the milk beforehand or the sheer amount makes everything cold in seconds. Across the street, my neighbor begins to smoke on the balcony again; he has been absent all through the dark months, the door has perpetually been closed. I bury myself in my head phones, play the soundtrack of when the city was young, when every street was unmapped but the sun refused to stop shining. How we walked down the hill, past the street where I would once live, in the soft summer night to the bar I would once call home, how we rekindled old friendship and I had a hand to hold in the new town, in the new life, where I found myself so impossibly lost.

People are impermanent, circumstance. Even cities crumble and leave you by the wayside, the music can let you down merely by being human, and you are tempted to believe the only thing that is always with you is yourself, but you are wrong. Because year after year, despite wars and tragedy, through storms and despair, the seasons will pass, one after another, and never fail to return.

If I make it through this winter, if I survive the darkness and the cold and the wraiths that guard my door, if only I keep my head over the freezing water's edge and let the days pass, at last the sun will return, at last the season will pass and spring may burst into my sleeping shell once more. If only I remember how to breathe, if I inhale and exhale in the right order and don't ask any of the difficult questions while the days are still dark, spring will return, the word will return, I will return. Just a little more time, my dear, and again we can abandon merely surviving. Again we can live.

Left Bank

I dreamed of frail branches sprouting, long slender twigs trembling in anticipation and under exertion, but determined. How green they were, the tiny, wrinkled leaves, how impossibly small yet unstoppable and we knew there would be no going back. The story of the dream, the twists, the point, are all gone, there were fall foliage colors and bright sunny mountainsides seen from ski lifts and space to breathe, but mostly there was that vibrant green that could pierce a heart with joy if you let it. How could you not?

When I woke, too late, the skies were grey, the snow sped in flurries around the street corners and I felt the stab of betrayal in my gut. People below hurried, pulled their coats tighter, suffered. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that [spring] would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. I scrub kitchen tiles in a desperate attempt to get the cog wheels within to start turning again, to remember they are alive and have choices to make. I don't think I'll be selling in April. I think maybe, if you want, you can stay through summer.  

He runs his fingers through his hair in that way of his, stands in my hallway, pulling at the strings of my life because I hand them to him. God or Devil, it is impossible to gauge his power, and I know it's unfair to even call it his. A soundtrack beats in my ear drum, pulls at my heartstrings, I cry over the dirty dishes in a home I try not to call mine. February will drag you through the dregs, will ruin your pretty dress and force the gravel into your eyes. It sinks its teeth into your pale skin until its venom has drowned you entirely. You haven't even soul left enough for tears.

But there are flowers on your windowsill, they stretch their petals towards the sky and mock the season with their mere existence.

Grit your teeth, stare at them until your eyes bleed.

This, too, shall pass.

Safeties

(The greatest trick 

the Devil ever pulled 

was convincing the world 

he didn't exist.)




I sleep so soundly at night, 
lately.

Sleep In

She stands at the exit and it is as though your worlds were never parted. Her voice in your apartment, her stories in your coffee; you never want the day to end. What would it be like if you lived here, I dream, and we know our days will never lie next to each other as they once did. No matter. She is already a stitch in your heart, holding the seams together, and neither time nor distance have anything on stitches of the heart. You will not bleed.

And thus every day passes: a sweet friend by your side, a sweet stitch in your heart. They hold you and carry you when February rains ice and breaks your determination. Not a single day passes when I do not rest my head on my pillow grateful for their unending loyalty and beautiful smiles.

Do not work too much
he says as he withers,
Do not leave your feelings 
in your chest,
Speak.
Never fight over money. 
Dare to say No.

Dare to say Yes.

When I woke early in the morning, warm skin next to mine and a rhythmic breathing mimicking my own, I heard birds outside the open window, mad with fervor and anticipating light. I smiled.

It will come,
in time.
I'll be waiting.

Brief

I'm tired, so tired, every quiet moment I feel I may pass out, but the children climb in my lap and whisper sweet stories of a world we can only barely glimpse, so I persevere. Every day in their presence I laugh, every moment by their side I am a better version of myself, it does not go unnoticed. At dinner, I still reel with exhaustion, but by the time we get to the bar, it is all hearts and familiar giggles. When the last patrons have left, we laugh louder and play all the music we are too ashamed to love in public. The dark space nestles its way through my insides, it is my living room when I have none; it is my home when I so desperately need it.

It terrifies me to no end, he says.
My heart beats wildly in my chest.
Vows to stitch the pieces back
Together.