to go outside

it is not just the cold months that make living so hard, it is the short days and dirty snow and the fear that it will never end but

it does and

from my window the choral chaos of children playing in the park and a chiming ice cream truck and I go outside with shoes on but no socks to

take a dirty shirt to the cleaners and I lick my first dipped cone and walk into woods that are filled with laughter and the skeletons of trees and

a girl with purple flowers strung in her hair strolls past and

she is smiling like

she is happy just to breathe this new air and

I climb a hill to a castle inside this city and a jogger who probably runs on shitty days too pounds past cans and broken glass and seeping rock water and a fallen tree, snapped low on its trunk, and black squirrels scurry and the benches are crowded with huggers and hand-holders and nappers and nuzzlers as

the sun sets over a wide river that separates the island from something undesirable but for a massive bridge and

ice cream drips on my hand for the first time this decade and

I forget what it was like to shiver in the dark for so long for a moment


~O~