gender-nightvale:

So you have survived another holiday season….

What do you do now?

Your hands are shaking from the coldness of relatives…

You stomach aches from avoiding dinner’s canabalism…

You have waded in pools of familial blood and found it thinner than water and running fast away from your heart…

You are the last leaf in winter, hanging to the tree. You are trembling in the winds of life you cannot avoid, but are forced to weather through until they break you.

You cannot change your family tree. You cannot change anything. Only be changed.

And yet when you found yourself in that downward spiral to the earth you realized it was not the end.

The ice of your father. The howls of your mother. The torrential clawing of grandparents and sibblings. None could break you.

Only set you free.

And I will not tell you winter will not come again… After spring is another fall.

But I will remind you that after fall is another spring.

And one day you will be warm with the love of chosen family. You will be somewhere you chose to be. With people you chose to let change you.

One day you will not be a leaf ever falling through external forces. You will be a person.

Beyond metaphor.

Beyond poetry dressing pain.

Beyond your tree.

Free to roam and move against the breeze and enjoy allseasons.

Do not feel guilt if this coming year does not deliver what last year’s could not. Your love is not an infinite distance or time away.

You are moving against the breeze, and

You are closer than you think.

We have survived another holiday season…

What do we do now?

.

Whatever our winds allow.