Poetry
Winter
I'm sitting outside in the purple-blue dark. It's cold.
Not Berlin-snowing-can't-feel-my-fingers-cold,
but wearing-both-a-hoodie-and-a-jacket-cold.
It doesn't remind me of the London cold,
the rainy-and-windy-and-dark-at-4-pm-cold.
It doesn't feel like I imagine the Seoul cold would have felt. Lonely and foreign.
No, this cold is familiar and boring.
This is the mid-June-July-southern-hemisphere-cold that I've felt for at least ten years.
And I've never hated it as much as I do this year.
Not because it's colder (because it isn't).
Or because the power is going out more than usual (although it is).
It's because I feel my friends' absence so much more this winter.
It's the last winter I'll truly feel alone in that particular Minervan-alone-while-staring-wistfully-at-Instagram-posts-set-in-San-Fransisco-way
because I know by next winter everyone will be moving on.
And I will be too.
I hope.
***
My parents' house is always cold.
Part of it is the fact that it's not very well insulated,
but more of it is that it's lonely and far and quiet.
I don't miss a specific place that feels like home.
I know this is home.
But I miss the togetherness of being with my friends.
I miss that jokes-you-make-while-in-the-same-class-feeling,
The cooking-for-your-roommates-warmth,
That Thursday-evening-mutual-feeling-of-relief-camaraderie,
The coldness-of-outside-that-fades-when-you-see-another's-smile-sentiment.
And maybe this is too specific.
Maybe my German-inspired extremely complex compound nouns do not connect with you.
But to simplify,
I'm cold and I'm sad and I'm not ready for this to be over.
I miss you, my friends,
and I love you.
Not Berlin-snowing-can't-feel-my-fingers-cold,
but wearing-both-a-hoodie-and-a-jacket-cold.
It doesn't remind me of the London cold,
the rainy-and-windy-and-dark-at-4-pm-cold.
It doesn't feel like I imagine the Seoul cold would have felt. Lonely and foreign.
No, this cold is familiar and boring.
This is the mid-June-July-southern-hemisphere-cold that I've felt for at least ten years.
And I've never hated it as much as I do this year.
Not because it's colder (because it isn't).
Or because the power is going out more than usual (although it is).
It's because I feel my friends' absence so much more this winter.
It's the last winter I'll truly feel alone in that particular Minervan-alone-while-staring-wistfully-at-Instagram-posts-set-in-San-Fransisco-way
because I know by next winter everyone will be moving on.
And I will be too.
I hope.
***
My parents' house is always cold.
Part of it is the fact that it's not very well insulated,
but more of it is that it's lonely and far and quiet.
I don't miss a specific place that feels like home.
I know this is home.
But I miss the togetherness of being with my friends.
I miss that jokes-you-make-while-in-the-same-class-feeling,
The cooking-for-your-roommates-warmth,
That Thursday-evening-mutual-feeling-of-relief-camaraderie,
The coldness-of-outside-that-fades-when-you-see-another's-smile-sentiment.
And maybe this is too specific.
Maybe my German-inspired extremely complex compound nouns do not connect with you.
But to simplify,
I'm cold and I'm sad and I'm not ready for this to be over.
I miss you, my friends,
and I love you.