Dark

There's something dark and writhing deep inside me, 
something wanting and soulful. 

It awakens when the night is cold
and frost seeps beneath my skin, 
when the icy starlight slips
through the cracks in my blinds,
when I forget to pretend 
I'm not carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. 

It's dark, yes. Dark like the earthen ground after rain, 
dark like lengthening shadows after dusk, 
dark like sweet blackberries 
clustered on brambles and thorns. 

It is a gaping desire that I do not shy away from. 
A need, a longing, a wanting. 

And isn't it funny how people
look at snow and say purity and clean and good 
but they glance at winter and say
so cold and dead and barren and bad?

There is a certain purity in the whiteness of snow, yes,
but it is ostensible more than anything else.
Beneath the snow hides layers of dirt and dust and bones.
There is a certain barrenness in winter, yes, 
but it is more a stasis than death. 
A waiting, a wanting, a hoping, a knowing. 

And isn't it funny how people
look at spring and they say, 
"life and cleansing and alive" 
but they glance at the mud and the pollen and heat 
and say, "bothersome, nasty, bad?"

There is a certain cleansing to spring, yes, 
but spring is more than just cleansing. 
It is an awakening, a hoping, 
a beginning of a cycle that did not end. 
And all its pieces are necessary, 
the mud and the pollen and the dirtiness and the heat, 
the melting of the snow and the softness of the ground, 
the shrinking shadows and the thundering rain. 

I like to imagine that if you cut me open, 
you would find a beating burning heart with all the rebirth of spring
and a static stasis with all the wanting of winter. 
I like to imagine that inside my bones, inside my blood, inside me, 
there is snow and purity and ice but also
there is thunder rain warm like puddles in the sunshine 
and budding flowers with the smell of rebirth heavy on their leaves. 

I remember what it means to be empty-
how could I possibly forget?
But for all the winter blossoming in my lungs
I remember also that winter does not mean dead, 
it means waiting. 
No, I am not patient, 
but I can learn to hold on
for the sake of awakening and rain and cleansing. 

And there are crimson droplets that splatter 
across the soft peat beneath my bare toes 
as a sunshine star-burst of sweet and bitter hits my tongue
and stains it red. 
Blackberries taste sweetest when your toes are curling into warm soft earth
and your fingertips are drenched in honey and blackberry-blood.