December 15, 2020

despair

is a poem I don’t want to write today—it is far too beautiful outside, with that cold 
that blooms a blush on cheekbones and resurrects memories of snowball fights 
and the rescue of hot chocolate and the feeling of the good kind of close quarters,
everything tucked in, warm, safe. But there it is, motioning meekly off-stage, 
pale-skinned and feverish. Already I feel that it will ask too much of me,
that it will cost too much, that I will topple from the weight, that I will lose myself
in the work it will take. There is nothing pretty about this poem, nothing of 
healthy distraction, nothing of amusement or art. So it’s strange how the closer I get,
the softer my touch around the pen. As if by advancing toward the fire, 
I am burning it out.