The long walk home is a lip’s distance away, mere breaths between greetings and goodbyes.

I wear the forest like armor—a ritual that keeps me soft on these endless clean days. There is a sanctuary

of stillness in the midwinter wolf song, a blank page on a cold, velvet throat. My memories of younger

days are scars that keep me warm while snowed in at the metro station: a sun-child born on the apex

of July; cool splash of a Texas lake in August, before the current and your love got choppy;

seventh-inning ice cream at a baseball game; skin chlorine and sunscreen glistening at the neighborhood

pool; the unexpected slow ooze of lava steaming into the Pacific. Nostalgia is not a Christmas miracle,

but it never hurts to reference the light when the wind warns of blizzards and the days are cut off at the knees.

Prompts used (tags are the poets’ IG handles):

@__vigilancee - “reference the light” @angelealowes - “memories of younger days” @imandq + @ml.mecham + @laur_enough - “sanctuary of stillness” @loisofthehearth - “still not a Christmas miracle” + “rituals that keep me soft” @papertearspoetry - “endless ocean days” @octavia.poetry - “return of the sun-child” @amykaypoetry - “Write a poem that includes a flashback montage.” @m.l.macdonald - “midwinter wolf song” @cozyinkpress - “velvet winter” @elenaspoetry - “scars that keep me warm” @arica_writes + @domarleypoet + @forgotten.dumpling + @imandq + @ml.mecham - “breaths between greetings and goodbyes” @shield.of.armour - “metro station” @thesoftword - “I wear the forest like armour” @lorrainefaepoetry - “blank page” @libbyjenner.poetry - “the wind warns me” @alexismromo - “a lip’s distance away” @imandq + @ml.mecham + @theincidentalpoet - “the long walk home”