Winter Dreams Poem by Christopher Howie

Ah, on nights such as these
Does my heart long for thee.
The cold, does it linger
Making my heart malinger.
Still I continue.

Winter shields not the ever-present thoughts
Of all that we were, had, and could have been.
My mind, it does continue to ponder
As my feet trudge and sluggishly wander.

O', what joy did you and I once possess?
I remember how your eyes did sparkle.
An emerald's gleam could not dare compare
And let's not speak of that smile that did glow.

Before we met, my heart, it was frozen.
Made hard by much anguish and constant grief.
As the storm of life battered my soul's sails,
A glacier, my heart grew cold and icy.

Careless, distant, and blase was my life.
I grew too cold to other people's strife.
What friends I had soon made their departure.
I was alone, and alone was I pleased.

But you were the one who opened my eyes.
Your beauty shook all my preconceptions.
'Twas not just your comeliness that stunned me.
Like a Fae sprite, you trumped my winter spite.

You challenged, and you motivated me
To change and to care about life once more.
It took some time, but I knew you were mine.
I came to love you, and you did love me.

And you saved me. You saved me from myself.
And we had found what millions would die for.
And you helped me learn how to love myself.
And for once, I thought I knew happiness.

But my eternal bad luck proved fatal.
To probe my memories brings just trouble.
Safe to say, you left me snow-blind and cold.
Winter is my nature, my creed, my state.

As the fallen fall leaves crunch at my feet
I can deny not my life's defeat.
All my joy and sorrow has come to naught.
I may as well roam among the snowmen.
'Twould mean just as much.