Two winters ago I would chain-smoke spirits on my way to work in the early mornings;
windows down, blueish fingertips,
driving through the gunks into the sunrise, Leonard Cohen on repeat—
            I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
I would drive home much the same way, sometimes going the long way
to catch the sunset;
my sunless days, nestled between 4 stiff walls
The world was grey;
            grey pavement
            grey skies
            grey walls
            grey smoke
It must be this way forever, I thought.
that February was the coldest month I remember being alive—

This year the windows are up, the sun is bright, I keep my car
warm.
In the passenger seat;
a bag of sweet sesame rice crackers, an apple, lime seltzer, a little jacket, my journal, tiny socks—
I reach my hand in the backseat
when Winona cries,
let her wrap her tiny fingers
around my thumb, "I'm here,
sweet girl"
I pull into a park on
the river— we get out
            watch the trees
            sway, the breeze
paints our faces rose, we
orient ourselves in this
big, unfamiliar
world. she reaches her hand
out as if to grab the falling leaves, a
wonderous look on her soft face—
she smiles,
she touches my face,
just months old and she knows
            my voice
she knows
            my safety—
for a moment,
            nothing else exists,
            the world doesn't know
            we're here—
for a moment, it's just us,
            like it was in that hospital room
            not too long ago
for a moment, there is
            peace—

I wonder if I'll remember this
in 60 years,
when both our hands
will have wrinkled, mine more
than hers; when crows' feet
ordain our eyes;
when I've lived my life, and she's
well into hers. I know
she won't remember,
I hope I do—

You don’t notice it at first.
Not really.
Life keeps you busy with noise, with dreams, with the next thing.

But then one day,
you cross an invisible threshold.
There’s no signpost, no celebration
just the quiet erosion of what once mattered.

The body falters first.
Not dramatically - no, it’s more insidious than that.
You wake up sore from sleep.
You get winded climbing stairs you once ran.
You start measuring your days in energy, not hours.

Then come the dreams
the ones you clung to like anchors.
They begin to dissolve.
Some shrink into hobbies, others vanish with a sigh.
And the ones that remain?
Too fragile to chase, too old to birth.

Your beliefs shift too.
Not because they were wrong,
but because the world keeps insisting you make room for things
you once swore you’d never tolerate.

You adjust.
You settle.
You survive.

But the worst part
the part no one warns you about
is the people.

One by one,
they begin to leave.

Some give you time.
They let you prepare your goodbye.
Others vanish mid-conversation,
leaving cups half full and promises unfinished.

And what’s cruel is not just that they’re gone
it’s that nothing fills their space.
You try.
You pretend.
You build new connections like patchwork quilts.
But nothing fits quite right.

Because love, real love, isn’t replaced.
It’s carried
as ache,
as memory,
as absence you learn to walk around like a piece of furniture in the dark.

You keep going, of course.
What else can you do?
You make tea.
You water the plants.
You smile at strangers and nod at the sky like it still owes you something.

But deep down, you know:
This is what it means to age
not the wrinkles, not the gray.
It’s the slow, silent disappearing
of everything that once made you feel
alive.

Those clouds of life, how they gather near,
Carrying whispers of joy and fear.
Billowing dreams in the vast unknown,
Soft as a sigh, or sharp as a stone.

In silver hues, they cradle the sun,
A promise of light when the shadows run.
Yet in their grey, a storm may brew,
A tempest fierce, or a gentle dew.

They drift on winds both wild and still,
Over valleys deep and the steadfast hill.
Some bring sorrow, a heavy rain,
A torrent of tears, a season of pain.

But others weave in the azure sky,
Shaped like laughter, as they float by.
They are the canvas of hope's embrace,
Each streak of gold a radiant trace.

For clouds, though fleeting, paint the way,
A mirror of night, a herald of day.
They speak of change, of paths untread,
Of dreams unspoken, of words unsaid.

Those clouds of life, with their shifting form,
Teach us to dance through the fiercest storm.
To see in darkness the light concealed,
And in each drop, the strength revealed.

When life grows heavy and skies turn dark,
Look to the clouds for a fleeting spark.
For even in thunder, their beauty remains,
In cascading hues or the softest strains.

Those clouds of life, so vast, so wide,
Are the journeys we take, the tears we've cried.
Yet in their dance, there lies a truth,
Each shadowed sky renews our youth.

So let them gather, let them soar,
For the clouds of life are forevermore.

Some departures we choose,
and some departures are forced upon us—
They arrive with the weight of mountains,
practiced in hesitant steps,
as if dragging the entire world behind us.
We move forward a little... then glance back a little,
for behind us lie things, dreams, souls,
to which our hearts remain tethered.

if by chance, with this spring
we go on to bloom
with new cuts
and citrus slathered over my hands
I bask in the beautiful scent
and tremble with the pain
just as you once said
It’s how things go
when life hands over  
the lemons and tangerines
we, barely prepared  
still coming into new shoes

But funny enough
here we are
I guess we never asked
the tulips and roses
how much it actually hurt
to burst through a bud
and bloom