The leaf on the stairs was a gift from a friend. Shadows turned sideways when I walked into your being.

It was cold out — much more than I am accostomed to since I’m from more temperate climates.

You didn’t think it was anything to have a girl looking through the window. It wasn’t big thing. And it wasn’t disturbing necessarily, but I wondered how long she’d be there. Like she gonna follow me forever or something now just cuz I didn’t exactly leave on good terms?
Watched the girl walk, crunching through snow and I said to him, why you hung up on her like she’s haunting you when you know you could let go at any moment?

Girl outside was an ancestor, you see. Figment of another time. Girl knew to give the message to both of us. Knew we’d hear it better that way.

I couldn’t help but think of my relation to this wood and I saw a hundred–thousand years past. As I blinked my eyes, the years floated by like nothing and I was in stasis. An unanswered question anong the whistling wind. I’d bring a fluffy coat closer to me to warm my cheeks against the cut of the breeze.

Walking takes such effort now. And there was this inclination to follow the girl. She know the way?

I had to hold in the near heartbreak that threatened to leap from my soul. How can I go in there again?

Two sets of footprints then three. It’s the only thing I see as I hide my face from the piercing wind.

Foot steps softly to the nightly snow.

I look around. And I’m alone again. With dancing snowflakes and fairytales that would distract me from the realities if survival.