I am white with forgetting.
The wind takes my name
and runs it ragged
against the mouths of trees.
Something died here—
not a deer,
but softer.
Something that once wore lace
and answered to “daughter.”
The frost comes in like a nurse,
measured and mute.
I let her pin my limbs
to the earth—
crosses made of bone
and surrender.
Underneath, I hum.
My roots ache like teeth.
There is a hunger coiled
just beneath the soil,
waiting for spring
to peel the silence back
like a scab.
They think I sleep.
They do not know
I am listening
to every worm
that dares to call this stillness home.