Hard isn’t strong enough to capture the lives we have recently lived.
There are easier out there. We are intimate with grief and exhaustion and resistance.
There are harder. We breathe lighter than war and famine and poverty.
And yet, moving through these days has been knee-deep snow fighting uphill in a blizzard.
Some days we fight the blizzard. Some days I fight you.
But here we are taking a moment.
Only you. Only me.
No world can shut us out or make us small, because we have already broken from it.
No, this moment is ours.
A glass of rioja reflects the flickering in your eyes.
A swirling intoxication of warmth.
I breathe in your words and joy and laughter.
I drink you in, like this glass of wine.
I melt from the brittleness and am poured
poured alongside a glass of you.
Penelope J Oak 