Winter

The dark days are back.

I’m back to digging my grave.

I took a turn for the worse just when I had it made.

Rainy days are like snow,

And sunny days are like rain.

I’m coming unglued from the anger and shame.

I’ve been abandoned by some,

And s**t like that sticks.

Some days I feel scared like a dog that’s been kicked.

Sometimes I feel like a fake because of things that I hide,

But nobody wants to hear that I’m empty inside.

Reviews

[Emily B]

Alms



My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane..

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight:
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, —and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.


Edna St. Vincent Millay