I was sitting on the porch again tonight,
in those old sweats with the torn waistband,
T-shirt already stiff from the cold.
Blanket wrapped around me like a promise
I didn’t bother to believe.
The thermometer said something like minus eight,
but my face gave up keeping track.
My hands felt like they belonged
to someone less stubborn.
The fire kept popping beside me,
all loud and cheerful,
like it didn’t realize
I wasn’t asking to be saved.
It threw light on the railing,
on the half-empty bottle,
on the path you shoveled last winter
before you decided you were done with all this.
There’s a muddy patch in the yard
where the garden used to try.
You said it was cursed soil.
I just think it got tired.
You got away before it did —
slipped out like a bird dropping feathers,
bright, fast, and sure of your own direction.
I stay out here because stopping feels worse
than freezing ever could.
My clothes are damp from earlier.
Your brother cried on the porch steps,
told me he didn’t blame me anymore.
I don’t know what to do
with grace that shows up unannounced.
So I just nodded,
let the cold finish the conversation.
Some nights I feel like a single cell
waiting on a tongue that doesn’t care
if it speaks or swallows.
Small enough to vanish,
alive enough to notice.
I never thought this version of living was real —
half-drunk, half-numb,
listening to songs I wrote
for someone I barely recognize now.
When I sing the words,
they loop back around,
like trying to remember
a dream that didn’t want to stay.
And loneliness… it has this strange talent
for sounding almost hopeful
when everything else goes quiet.
The idea of freezing to death
isn’t dramatic out here.
It’s just another thought
waiting its turn.
But even now,
with the blanket failing
and the fire pretending,
I can’t make myself give in.
Not tonight.
Not yet.
extra_unbearable
