winter is coming

if i went down to the chapel today

and fought to feel you

would i suddenly remember your face,

sweet and kind as a child’s?

would you return to me like a dream?

or would it all be figments of the mind

stressing to cope, desperate to sense you?

winter creeps up behind autumn

like a shadow, casting darkness over

memories of you; you died in December,

when the snow was still on the ground

and my footsteps still melted in its wake

now when i walk, it is with the icy strut of

a woman, adult now, grown and too tired

to reminisce about how much i miss you

sometimes it feels childlike to mourn you

i see you in my mother sometimes and i close

my eyes so my tears will stop in the crevices

of my eyelids instead of falling down my face

like an endless silent stream

you make me remember how kind i can be

and that love we had is what i do remember

more than anything; pure human connection

like a thread of fate, thin but everlong

and everlasting

is it foolish to believe in what we cannot see?

or is it useless to fear what we cannot know?

winter is coming, and all i can do

is beg you to come back softly

and without a word