Tag Archives: january 2022

End of January 2022: Biting

Happy 2022! We’re starting things off with a strange gerund. Biting is an act, but it is also a descriptor. The biting cold, for example. (I rediscovered, as I do almost every winter, that the cold does bite. In some instances though, it can be so lovely.) Biting is a harsh word, as new years often are. It’s also an active word, akin to seizing or opportunizing. It feels correct for this month: at once brutal and accurate.

I love using months as markers of the passage of time. They can feel so long, but so short. They can swallow you whole, or they can pass you by. I looked back at this month and realized I experienced such a wide range of emotions in a matter of a few weeks. Months are so captivating in that way. I was so sad and then so okay. Still sad, but still okay. I laughed a lot despite it all.

Some songs of various genres as we go into the next month: Direct Address by Lucy Dacus, Dead of Night by Orville Peck, Cool by Gwen Stefani, and the cover of Rainbow Connection by Hayley Williams (the best) and Weezer (the worst). May these songs inspire you. May the arbitrary designation of a month inspire you.

January

I am not vicious
I love to stare
when light hits the room across the street 
as if by an alien sun.
I like to think those people get the kind of sleep I crave 
as I move my pothos to the floor
or back to the sill. 
I hope for peace 
and finally heat 
but time hasn't yet come 
for me: thoughts fall like marbles 
and dry hands press air,
It is still only winter
and we wait in our corners,
I am a cold planet 
pruning and crying,
killing and dying.