The puff of summer-snow, dandelion seed scatter. With it goes a wish, off into the distant blue. Now, the real snow drifts down from its perch in the clouds. Now, the season changes. The nights come earlier and earlier, dim dustings of snow over black pavement. The fear of the cold lives within your chest.

                         Nights become brighter, with the reflection of light bouncing off snowfall. Clouds cover the sky, but still, light flows into your room. The stars are breathing up above. When it’s cold, they seem more visible, Cassiopea in the distance.

                         What do you wish for? This season to pass. The bell to never toll its funerary chime again. Ding, dong, ding. In the funeral home the clocks chime every half-hour. In the funeral home you read your story about your great grandmother—standing beside her casket, waiting for her burial.

                         Winter is hard for a multitude of reasons. The frigid air, frigid stares. In the cold you forget there ever was warmth at all. Your body aches all the time. Your mind slows to a dull murmur. You worry about slipping on ice, injuring yourself again. But the snow is beautiful. The sky, when it clears, is bright with white paint-splatters.

                         As the day dims, the world is soaked with a tinge of azure. As it brightens in the afternoon, the world becomes a little greyish. Snow falls in great clumps. At the dorms, someone builds a small snowman that will later be destroyed by someone lacking in whimsy. You lay down your heart on a snowy bench, leaving it there for a lover.

                         What do you wish for? For time to pass a little faster, then slow right down. For a break, some time to take long baths and relax. All the work piles up as the semester ends, you run out of time for yourself. Your writing sits on the back burner, the edges crisping. In the time between classes, you can barely squeeze it in.

                         Last winter, you were in the psych ward. Today marks the day you were first institutionalized. These thirteen days will feel strange in a way none have before. Even now you feel confined, trapped in the way of the ward. You live in routine, the kind the ward is meant to foster—every night you take your meds, every morning you rise out of spite.

                         Last February, when you announced you got accepted to college in the fall, your stepfather speculated that you couldn’t handle it. Those words stuck with you. Every day that you don’t feel like going to class, you repeat his words back to yourself and get on your way. Spite is a powerful motivator.

                         What do you wish for? More snow, less cold, more love, less weight. Love is a heavy thing, and the snow remains frigid. Wishing for something to smile about, calls in the night with someone you love. You get angry over something so small you can’t bear to say anything about it. You get sad over the ending.

                         Shedding all those things that no longer serve you, deciding what to carry forward.Uncaring flakes of snow fall as you try to decide what you need for the coming year, what will be thrown out when the spring comes. That time of change, that time of renewal! Oh, how you long for it.