Last year I wrote “Next Christmas”
           like it was a decision,
like optimism was a boarding pass
          you could print at home.

Turns out—
      Christmas does what it wants.

So I’m in DFW,
   nursing Ava,
   nursing myself,

   doing the right things in the right order.

You’re in STL,
       nursing your mom,
         doing the same—

         love in its practical clothes,
         family in the foreground,

         no complaints from either of us.

And still,
    Christmas Eve shows up
    with that particular quiet,
    the kind that makes missing you

    feel like a physical condition.

Tomorrow you fly home
         to Mister Coal.

Tomorrow Ava takes off
         with her mom’s family.

Two departures,
    two directions…
        I can already feel the hollow

        they’ll leave behind.

If I could get to Atlanta tomorrow,
   I would.

Hell—
     I still might.

You know how I get
    when missing you gets involved:
    last-minute plans,
    irrational logistics,
    that familiar delusion

    that longing can out-run a schedule.

Meanwhile Texas is misbehaving:
             unseasonably warm,
        nearly eighty all week,
           the kind of weather
     that belongs to pool days
             and bad decisions.

I could be swimming in this.

Instead I’m watching it
        like it’s a prank—

        like someone left July on by mistake.

No cold.
No bite in the air.
No honest winter to match the date.

Just sun on the pavement
     and you… not here.

So here’s my proposal,
   not a plan (we don’t do plans),
   just a small future I’d like to be worthy of:

   Let’s celebrate winter later,
         when the world remembers how to shiver,
         when there’s real breath in the air,
         when the sky looks like it means it.

We’ll make our own season—
      a borrowed December,
        a private snowfall,
          a two-person weather report.

For tonight,
    I’ll do all I can:
         keep the pilot light on,
         send my quiet across the miles,
         let myself want you

         without making it your job to fix it.

And tomorrow,
    when you leave your family
    to go home to Coal,
    and I watch Ava leave
    to go be loved elsewhere,
       I’ll hold the truth underneath all of it:

       We’re in the right places.
       We’re doing the right things.

But there is no snow—
    and I want you anyway.

All want.
No snow.

That’s the whole forecast.