Snow Standing In For Tears [Wreath]
The living room is too bright and too loud, that special holiday mixture of fake cheer and genuine exhaustion that scrapes nerve endings raw,
Voices bounce off the framed photos and the silver garland, jokes overlapping, cutlery clinking, somebody’s playlist fighting for dominance with three conversations and a barking dog,
You sit on the edge of the couch with a plastic plate balanced on your knees, smiling in the right places and nodding at the right times, while somewhere behind your eyes a pressure builds like a storm you really don’t want anyone to see or draw,
There’s a moment where you know if one more person asks “You okay?” with that tilted head and worried tone, the dam in your chest will crack and nobody needs that much truth with their ham and eggnog.
So you stand up, make some excuse about needing air, about being “too warm” in here, which is hilarious given how cold your hands feel even wrapped around a mug that used to steam,
Someone offers you another blanket, another drink, another distraction, but you shake your head and aim for the front door, stepping between tangled fairy lights and a coffee table minefield of crumbs and wrapping paper like it’s some quiet dream,
The door clicks behind you with that small, final sound that always feels bigger than it is, like the house just sealed its story for a minute and the world tilted toward clean,
And suddenly you’re outside in the dark, on the porch, in the kind of cold that doesn’t care about your problems, doesn’t ask for context, doesn’t want anything from you but steam.
Snowflakes drift down slow and lazy, like ashes from a fire that never learned to burn hot enough to finish the job,
Streetlight on the corner turns each flake into a floating speck, tiny white lies tumbling from a sky that’s done this performance every year and never once apologized for the mess on your heart or your drive or your job,
The yard’s a patchy mess of footprints and dog tracks and old snow mounded where shovels gave up and decided “close enough” was a lifestyle,
You step out into it in socks or the wrong shoes, breath catching, cheeks already stinging, and tilt your head back just enough to let the cold start carving at your denial.
The first flake that hits your face startles you with its softness, a cold kiss on the bridge of your nose,
Then another lands on your eyelid, melts instantly, and you feel the tiny warm track run down, indistinguishable from the tear that almost rose,
You close your eyes and let a few more land, light touches on your lashes and cheeks, each one vanishing into skin as if it was never there, like so many almost-spoken words and half-owned woes,
You tell yourself you’re just “enjoying the snow,” like some wholesome postcard, but the truth is you’re out here letting the sky cry for you, letting winter take the weight of what you don’t dare expose.
You stand very still, listening to the muffled chaos inside, the dull thump of bass under laughter, the click of a dish, someone’s story hitting its punchline,
Out here the sound is different, thick and padded, snowy quiet wrapping the street, turning the world into a snow globe someone forgot to shake a second time,
Your breath rises in steady clouds while the flurries stipple your face, washing the heat from your eyes, cooling the raw scrape where emotions tried to climb,
You focus on the cold, on the sting, on the way the snow holds your attention so completely that the ache in your chest takes one cautious step back, gives you a little space on your own timeline.
It’s a strange bargain, but people like you have always made bargains with weather.
You walk in rain so nobody sees you fall apart, you sit in parked cars with the heater off so the air can chew some of your anger before you go back in and call it “just under the weather,”Tonight you chose snow because it feels cleaner, quieter, more forgiving when it lands on your skin and steals your heat,
It doesn’t ask why there’s that tightness in your throat when your uncle mentioned “next year” like it’s guaranteed, or why your hand twitched when someone set a place where someone used to sit and now never will, neat.
A neighbor’s light clicks on briefly, then off again, like the street decided to blink and let this little moment hide,
You tilt your head farther back, snow landing on your lips now, tiny shocks of cold that melt into the warmth there, turning your mouth into a place where two temperatures collide,
A lump rises down deep and you swallow it hard, jaw clenched, telling yourself that you’re just overwhelmed by how “pretty” it is, the air, the falling white, the way the porch looks in this light,
Even as your pulse stutters and your chest feels two sizes too small for everything crowded inside.
If anyone opens the door right now and sees your wet face, you’ve got the script ready.
You’ll laugh it off, say, “Snow in the eyes, guess I should have grabbed a hat,” maybe wipe your cheeks with a gloved hand like this is all light and steady,
They’ll tease you about being dramatic, about “standing there like a Hallmark extra,” and you’ll roll your eyes and agree, grateful for the out, grateful nobody’s asking why your shoulders shake just the slightest when you’re not ready,
Then they’ll close the door again, leave you to your quiet arrangement with the weather, where you let the sky beat you to the punch on breaking down, trading real sobs for this cold, controlled confetti.
Under the porch light, your hair gathers a dusting, a fine crown of frost you didn’t earn but wear anyway,
Your ears burn, your fingers go numb, and still you wait for that shift inside, the one where the urge to cry ebbs enough that you can walk back in and make jokes and help with dishes and say “I’m good, really, I’m okay,”Out here, with snow kissing your face over and over until everything’s slick and cold and buzzing, you feel something loosen its grip on your lungs, not gone, not healed, but willing to share space with air again, willing to let you stray,
You take a few slow breaths just to prove you still can, every inhale a dare, every exhale a messy, visible grace underway.
By the time you step back toward the house, your eyelashes are damp, your cheeks chilled, your heart beating a little slower,
The pressure behind your eyes has downgraded from imminent storm to heavy weather advisory, still there, still serious, but no longer guaranteed to spill over,
You wipe your face on your sleeve like it’s no big deal, sniff once, and put your hand on the doorknob, feeling the heat seeping from the crack, the smells of food and pine and perfume and old jokes coiling over,
Then you shoulder yourself back inside the noise, letting the snow melt quietly on the entryway rug while everyone calls your name, none of them realizing you just let the sky cry on your face so you wouldn’t have to, at least not this time, not sober.