If you asked me, I would say that my life is currently in winter. No, I’m not at the end of my life, though I know that’s a common association to make.

After all, winter is a time of barrenness and death. It falls at the end of the year, after a full cycle of birthing and growing and thriving and dying.

But winter is more than that. It’s more than an ending. It’s a beginning. Because the seasons are a cycle. They don’t end with winter and death. Winter leads into spring. Death leads into life.

My life is like that right now. In many ways, it is barren and empty, but that quiet nothingness can be beautiful, like a world muted by heavy white snow.

Pieces of my life were put to death, but that isn’t a bad thing. Those deaths don’t signal the end. They lead to new life. The death of one bad job can lead to the birth of a new passion. The death of an unhealthy relationship can be the birth of new friendships, new loves, or even new confidence in independence.

Right now, my life is in winter. But I’m enjoying the beauty in the barrenness while I wait for spring to arrive.

Happy.

Sad.

Happy.

Sad.

Hungry.

Full.

Hungry.

Full.

Not spicy at all.

...

Oh, now I'm starting to feel it...

AUUGHHH!!!

Too hot.

Too cold.

So close to being perfect...

Ugh, I messed it up.

Ahh...

Ahhh...

AHHHH!!!

...Oh, the sneeze is gone.

This will be fun!

I'm doing great.

Just a little more...

Ok, no more.

My nose itches.

My nose burns.

My nose is runny.

Sick.

School starts.

Burnout.

Winter/summer break.

Less burnt out.

Sprint.

Hold.

Push.

Final stretch.

Just five more minutes.

Just five more minutes.

Just five more minutes.

Oh shoot, it's been an hour

Energized.

Tired.

Fatigued.

Dormant.

Like.

Love.

Hate.

Alone.

I can't get better.

I hate myself.

Stop.

I can't stop.

Pretend it's fine.

It's not fine.

Everything is falling apart.

Tell nobody.

Tell nobody.

Tell nobody.

I need to tell somebody.

Anybody.

Please.

Even if they can't help.

I need to say something.

I need to scream into a pillow.

Something.

Anything.

...

...

But then it's fine again.

Check Prose.

Realize I haven't written anything in a while.

Write something.

Leave for an undisclosed period of time.

Goodness knows you’re a real good man.

If you can’t fix what’s broke, nobody can.

You’re made of the right stuff, got a good mind.

Don’t wanna work for nothing on another man’s dime.

Said, you’d put a ring on her finger ’fore the winter’s up.

Put a ring on her finger if she’d hold still long enough.

You gonna start putting up walls and laying down a floor.

Fill the seats around the table, that’s what you came here for.

Bitter cold necroses fingers and toes

Tips of noses that used to sniff tulips,

Wrinkle at the sight of bees and trash,

Bury in pubes every once in awhile

When hot girl summer allowed some fun

Amidst the studying and books and grades.

The falling leaves and sullying, chilly rains

Gave some experience to slipping on ice,

Yet nothing prepared for the cracked soil

Never to yield another tulip or blade of grass

Or tree where we climbed and giggled again.

The frozen globe that I traverse alone,

Occasionally getting glimpses of stained glass

Scenery like the sunsets, the ice-cream stand,

The beach in October then again in July,

The last kiss we shared beneath the sherbert sky

As the stars appeared and that summer ended

And the eternal winter set in and buried us.

The spring was a pleasant time. A beginning. Not without its flaws - rain must fall for things to bloom, after all. The plant was left alone inside, given very little sunlight, the teddy bears in the room its only company. Trying to please the two who planted it.

Its petals were ripped away at some strange moment but they hardly noticed, too busy giggling at the gentle hands of their attacker, too young to know the difference between a love true and one that required egregious sacrifice. This attacker was their only friend. And despite the bad that was done, the flower felt more pain at losing her.

Summer came much too soon. The boiling heat began to char the plant's edges, causing terrible migraines and an urge to give it all up. Nigerian heat is much too sweltering for a living thing to want to stay alive and all things will go, right? It wanted to leave much sooner than it should have.

The heat lasted years. Before the flower learnt that the sun in itself could also be gentle and warm rather than cruel and derogatory, it would offer itself before the scorch. A potted plant with no roots, suddenly surrounded by varied others.

It tried to find solace in their noise but couldn't stop comparing itself. It shied away from the eyes when all it had wanted to do was bloom, once. It let the sun burn because nothing else seemed right to feel but pain. A specially, self-crafted inferno, right there in its head.

But eventually, all things pass. The sun gave way in time. Not gently but in a sharp twist of intensity. It was cruel and sudden but perhaps it was necessary. The mind gave way to autumn and the little plant lay down, exhausted from it all, and let the winds blow as they chose.

It hardly moved those years. It was cold, bitter, practically dead. Nothing mattered, anymore.

Yet, distanced and cold as it tried to be to hide its vulnerability, another attacker came.

The petals were stripped in a new way. The plant was much too seasoned to ignore the way it felt. To see it as kindness. This attacker wasn't gentle, only believed she was. Our tired little plant let the cold winds of autumn take over completely. Its pot's foundation shaken; there was a wider void there than ever before.

Time passed. Attempts were made to paint its pot a little brighter. Pretend all was well. The winds were always cold and it didn't think it deserved the decency of a blanket. The leaves fell until they swirled in the plant's mind, leaving a soft pile of snow behind.

There's something about snow. It was something, somewhere new. It seemed frigid at first but felt safer, too.

At some point, the plant left autumn behind. Ran from the horrid winds and the attacker, holding onto the petals it had still, warmed by a kinder, thicker, self-crafted blanket.

Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

Rapidly circling like a carnival ride

How can you stop it?

Just for a second to reduce the nausea

Reduce the loud noise and the dizziness

But such is life

The more you fight it, the more you feel the unease and abrasiveness of each motion

It’s redundant, yet terrifying

Beautiful, and tantalizing

Some love the ride, yet some hate it

All you have to do is keep holding on