I'm made of cobwebs, shaded grays, echos faded by the murky streetlight; Festive blobs signal the holidays - and ricochet off me into the night. . A thick, dull fog 'tween me and them, a brick wall no one can see; seamless weights in my hem, and dust inside what used to be me. . And then there's you, a year away, waisted tears, and prayers null; an end thought for each void day, a whisper-scratch in my old hull. . The words avoid me, skittish things, like birds that flutter fragile wings; the right ones are only fledglings, too young for new beginnings. . And I wish that I could care for cold, worn out flat 'tween mortar and pestle, a forlorn growth ring in a tree of old, trapped inside a rotting vessel. . .