Wool and What It Hides [Wraith]
Night piles up along the street in crooked drifts, that bitter kind of cold that sits behind the eyes and waits,
Breath comes out in ghosty little storms that fade as fast as every promise you swore you’d keep this year before the bills, the calls, the stacked-up plates,
You stand in the entryway wrestling with your armor, mittens tugged over fingers that ache from too much scrolling and too much clutching at empty fates,
Scarf wrapped around your mouth so tight you could almost believe it might hold in the words you never said right, the apologies you rehearse and never state.
Layers on layers, fabric stacked like excuses, hoodie under coat under something older that still smells like last winter’s cigarette and cheap cologne,
You pad yourself in cotton, wool, and down, like you’re hiding contraband feelings in every seam, stitching panic into thread so the needle never stands alone,
The mirror near the door shows a bundled shape with eyes barely visible between hat and scarf, a stranger who looks like they’re smuggling a storm in their bones,
You mutter a joke at your own reflection, calling yourself an overstuffed snowman, but you don’t quite meet your own gaze, as if you’re scared of what those eyes have always known.
Step outside and the cold hits you like a slap from a friend who swears they’re doing what’s best,
The wind sneaks fingers up inside your cuffs, tests the gaps in your defenses, hunts the skin you left bare at the edge of your wrist and the small exposed strip at the collar of your vest,
Every gust rattles the loose Christmas lights along the porch, makes the plastic deer in the yard nod like nervous witnesses to some private arrest,
Your boots crunch over old snow that’s hardened into something that remembers prints from other nights out here, when you came to breathe, to swear, to get things off your chest.
The warmth you packed around your ribs doesn’t quite get the job done, and maybe that’s on purpose.
It’s not just about staying alive in this knife-blade air, it’s about padding yourself just enough to keep the world from noticing you’ve been hollowed out under the surface,
The coat hides the way your shoulders hunch, the scarf hides the trembling line of your jaw when the wind makes the copper taste of old fear rise in your throat like a bad chorus,
Mittens hide the clench of your hands, fingers curling as if they still expect to hold something they no longer have, gripping nothing as if that nothing might finally feel worth it.
Fabrics rub together with a soft hiss when you move, a quiet friction that sounds too much like whispers in a dark hall,
Every stitch in that scarf is a memory wrapping tighter, the one they gave you when you said you were fine and they looked at you like they didn’t buy it at all,
You joke that you’re “bundled up like a kid,” but the truth is more like being swaddled in old fights and tired holidays, wrapped in every time you swallowed anger and smiled for the group call,
The coat weighs heavy on your shoulders, a wearable attic full of ghosts that smell like pine, gravy, burnt sugar, and the hot sour breath of arguments that bounced off these walls.
Somewhere under all that wool, your skin still feels the cold, threaded through with it, nerves lit like bad fairy lights that only flicker when you least want them to show,
Your chest tightens not from temperature but from memory, the way that one winter night slammed into you years ago and never really let go,
There was shouting in a kitchen then, hands waving, a slammed door rattling the wreath, and you ended up standing outside just like this, layered up, pretending it was just the snow,
Back then you thought another coat, another scarf, another pair of gloves would be enough insulation between your heart and the world’s bite, like fabric could rewrite what you know.
But shadows are clever, and they aren’t scared of sweaters.
They slip under cuffs and collars, they ride in on drafts that find the tiny open tooth in your zipper, they lurk in the padded hush between layers, writing their promises in lint and pilled-up letters,
They press cold hands against your spine even under three shirts, reminding you that every warm room has its corners, every December has its collectors,
They curl inside your sleeves, nestle at the hollow behind your knees, hitch a ride up your back when you turn toward the dark yard, whispering in a voice that sounds suspiciously like your own but worse.
The bells from some far-off church spill their sound over the rooftops, tinny and late,
Their cheerful little melody hits the air and freezes halfway here, falling in cracked notes that rain down like someone dropped a box of decorations on concrete and decided to call it fate,
You stand there, breath fogging, layered like an onion that never wanted to be peeled, wondering why every “merry” sound hits your nerves like a warning gate,
Why the word “cheer” sits wrong in your mouth, as if you’re biting down on a strand of tinsel that got tangled in your teeth, glitter cutting your tongue while you try and smile straight.
You feel too hot and too cold at once, skin sweating under wool while your face burns from the wind’s slap,
Body in a strange argument with itself, stuffing and shiver, like you’re haunted by every time you said “I’m good” when you were minutes from collapse,
The fabric rubs raw at your throat where the scarf is too tight, and you think, well, at least if I suffocate it’ll save me from making small talk in there, some grim, quiet clap,
And you smirk in the dark at your own black humor, because if you don’t laugh at this mess of warmth and fear you’re wearing, you’re afraid the only other option is to finally snap.
Someone inside the house laughs too loudly, the sound muffled by walls and curtains and years of layered paint,
You know every voice in there by weight and pitch, can tell who’s faking, who’s drunk, who’s holding back tears behind a forkful of dessert and a well-practiced complaint,
You know they’ll ask where you went if you stay gone long enough, but you let the cold chew on your cheeks a little more, let your nose turn red, let your fingers feel the pinch of their wool cages without restraint,
Because out here, bundled in shadows and fabric and your own heavy thoughts, you can let your face twist, let your eyes sting, let your mouth tremble without needing to explain what ain’t.
The truth is, you dressed for weather, not for battle, but you walked into both.
Your body wrapped for the forecast, your heart wrapped in old expectations and newer disappointments, layered so thick you hope nobody can tell what’s underneath when they offer you some leftover broth,
Yet the shadows under your coat know better; they know every time you flinched at a careless word, every holiday where you wanted to vanish into the snow bank and come back as someone else, dressed in a different cloth,
They know the warmth is half costume, half defense, and they settle in deeper, like wolves burrowing into the lining of your hood, waiting for the moment you finally admit you’re not as insulated as you thought.
In the end, you tug your mittens tighter, breathe one long plume of steam into the night like you’re exorcising something from your chest,
Make some dumb promise to yourself about not letting this season chew holes in you again, even if you know you’ll probably break it when the next song plays and the next memory hits and you fold like the rest,
Then you turn back toward the door, carrying your shadows under your scarf, under your sleeves, under the polite smile you’ll paste on as you step into the heat and the lazy request,
Warm on the outside, frostbitten around the heart, wrapped in more than fabric, bundled in ghosts that cling just as tight as the wool, not leaving, just learning how to live as your uninvited guest.