A Quiet Winter

Sumaiyah Hossain

I’ve suffered unendingly the last half-year, and I know I’ve only hurt myself
in the end. The Spring danced me into each morning that felt crisp and happy,
but how could I have known I would be chasing its ghost as I wander the empty halls
of Winter’s house?

Each breath I’ve dragged into my lungs has rung with a question wondering when
I wronged you and whether I knew I would come to suffer as I have. Winter’s mornings
are much colder than those of Spring. And yet, it is not enough to slow my mind
from the racing thoughts of what could have been fixed.

I am near the end of the world now, and I think it’s time I give up this chase.
It has been as unfruitful as it has been harmful, and to heal will take longer than it’s taken
to reach my current disposition. How, each whispering breath freezes into pins that
cushion against my cheeks—how did I get here?

Winter’s house is a lonely one. It has been quiet since I’ve been here, and I couldn’t
tell you when that was. The quiet maddens me, and perhaps something stirred me awake
long enough to think of you one last time.

Until I suddenly remembered how Spring felt. It, in fact, was a little too warm these past
years. Uncomfortably warm. And the bees did not fly through my garden as they once would.
Did you chip away at the joys I once treasured in Spring? Did you know these small treats
of happiness would eventually ready me for Winter?

Did you know I would end here...like this?

A rather cruel game, I would expect no less. I know I shall die here in this quiet house.
Winter’s welcoming home cannot shelter a rotting soul, so I strip my corpse of the last
warmth from Springs ago, when we were young and foolish, when we knew to love others
and enjoyed their sublimity. You have lured my heart into a tender misdirection.

So I was unprepared to die this Winter.

I shall lay my withering body this last night, as I await the first petals of a new world
bloom from each crevice of my soul. I will be born again, and perhaps this time I will be prepared.