minds are colliding

Winter leans against my door again,

quiet, patient, wearing thin.

It enters without question why -

no greeting, just a colder sky.

I don’t ask it why it came.

It doesn’t ask me how I’ve been.

We already know the places tired hearts go

when daylight thins and shadows grow.

The air turns pale, a muted blue,

the kind that settles deep and true

behind the ribs, a breathing stone -

a silence meant to be alone.

Still, I walk out into the cold,

breath rising like a truth retold -

a leaving that will not depart,

a fragile warmth around the heart.

The world is empty in a clean way,

as if swept clear for just today.

A loneliness with polished edges,

snow in corners, frost on ledges.

Sadness fits here, light and bare -

not crushing, just already there.

Like stepping in the room where pain

has kept your name inside the frame.

And yet -

a quiet ember stays.

A soft persistence in the haze.

Streetlight gold on untouched white,

a pulse that lives in winter’s night.

Something in me does not fold,

even standing in the cold.

Winter is here again.

I let it in.

Not because I want it.

But because it knows