December always arrives too soon.
Like the first guest at a dinner party you didn’t know you were hosting
Persistent and patient in her imposition, she traces her ice-cold fingers
Across the table you spent years setting
And tells you it’s all wrong; your courage isn’t where it’s supposed to be
And your drape is dirtied with the residue of discarded desire,
And why is your faith smeared everywhere, on the place mats, on the kitchen floor?
“Anyway, it is all crooked and broken”, she says, “the shards of your belief should not be this
sharp.”

You smile politely as you try to clear up this mess you had never seen
”Wait a minute”, you say, but as before, December shows you again that time is irreverent
And she could wait forever and a day, but would anything change?
The chill returns with a vengeance unlike you’ve ever felt before
Demanding to be endured as it seeps into your skin and bones
She tells you there’s too much grief in your home, it is spilling
And that’s why everything always tastes rotten
No amount of incense can mask the smell of the scorched earth,
And that’s why your knees are always weak, she tells you
The rot, the decay, it all comes from within.

She looks at the thing in your chest and laughs when you tell her it’s your heart
The comparison is too dreary and old to make, but she says it anyway;
‘Greyer and emptier than all my skies’.
You try to tell her that she has arrived earlier than expected
If you had a little more time, things would be different
But as before, the cruel cold month reveals that it is all in vain.
You could break every clock in the world and still be left wanting
As you are now, on your knees, at the precipice of the new year,
Begging not to be who you already are.
Dragging your feet across the floor into whatever comes next.
Still not quite ready to let anyone in.