thank you, February

Thank you, February, for flying by. In recent years, you have stuck around like ice on my car in a snowstorm. An even four weeks of misery and shivering and chattering my teeth at every stoplight on my way to work. No schedule could be busy enough to distract me from the bleak white outside the forced-air heat of the office where I work. When I wrap myself in scarves and make my way home for the evening, you are cruel enough to shroud the sky with clouds. I am restless when I return, and wool sweaters are never enough to keep the winter air from reaching my bones and drying my skin and as I cling to a blanket, nursing a cup of tea. But this year, you let me peek out from under your cloak of cold depression and I discovered my own warmth outside the weather. Perhaps it was my old friend and new roommate, Alex, who kept me from setting myself into patterns of inactivity - simply with his presence. I sometimes hear him creaking the floorboards of the upstairs where he sleeps; a reminder hanging over my head indeed. Maybe new windows or a better heated house have insulated me from your torments, or a confidence in my career that has me far from being overwhelmed. I place my own appreciation in my new love. A woman who is so much more to me than a kiss and kind words, or a warm body sleeping beside me. Her tiny smiles and the way she holds her cats keep me eyes-closed and smiling as your wicked wind burns my face. Her songs are a part of my soundtrack, and I am dreaming of our summer together under warmer days than you would ever yield. I am complacent and lost in her eyes, while you are attempting to break her spell. Fruitless, February! This strength far outweighs the icicles on my awning, or the heavy snow you piled in my driveway. With every shovelful I am defying you. I feel a cozy company in the world I have drawn around me, with your dreary days as my unexpected ink. You are still not my favorite month, and I read far less books under your Sunday skies than I intended, but you are almost behind me. Good riddance! But thank you all the same, for growing me one more month.

to sustain my crazy

Rooted so fully in sustainability. Why shouldn't I want to keep this going? This pilgrimage to lands of my dreams with a slow deep breath and a welling in my heart of joy and expression. The swirl of colors from our dancing and the melodies that bleed into Sunday afternoons as I drink in the noise around me. Shifting in your seat at my side questions a comfort I have been sculpting so carefully, and I watch in fear at this house of cards breathed down, tumbling to my feet. True, I build these silly visions with a romantic eye and a longing for something more. Will I ever sigh so humbly at everything you've given me? or sulk soundly in my obstinacy. "Please please please let me get what I want". "If I can't have what I want, I don't want anything". "I want you".

We stand so close, and my mind traces itself around your face. I lose my grip on sustainability, and want to explode myself from devotion. I feel that everything I've been looking for could be found in your eyes and your hair; the bangs you've denounced with such fervor, as your opinions always stand like pillars in concrete. You are quick to dismiss my lunacy, but I do not wish to be rescued from this drowning. I would rather sink than swim in contentment, and let it kill me. Maybe I will come to second life in a even-keeled affection where we are never crazy, never foolish. Not now.