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Winter Whispers, Stupid Songs
The morning slaps me awake
with a frozen windscreen,
keys in hand, scraping frost like
I’m chiselling through someone else’s mistakes.
My breath hangs in the air,
a ghost of myself
mocking the effort.
The cold flirts cruelly with my cheeks,
leaving them raw,
only for the radiator’s blast
to burn them out of spite.
The heating bill waits in the wings,
a villain in this pantomime.
“Put on another jumper,” I mutter,
as if wool could conquer capitalism.
Blanketed, I surrender to films
where faces blur into
a tinsel-coated déjà vu –
different eyes, same dialogue,
happy endings so loud
they drown out my cynicism.
Stupid Christmas songs screech
their hollow cheer,
and I let them.
They’re easier to hate
than my own thoughts.
But the air is so fresh
it cuts clean through the noise.
For a moment,
the world feels lighter –
even the weight I carry
shrinks to something
I can hold in my hands,
turning it over like snowflakes,
watching it melt
into the brittle calm of this season.
Copyright ©
Lauren Tilley
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