you smell like winter

Everything always happens in winter and this time around it’s one winter later and I’m suddenly back where I was the winter before. He is a different he and we talk like old friends because that’s what we’ve become in a year. The words spill fast and easy because I’ve drank too much and my heart is pounding and the room is spinning. The room is always spinning. Sitting close enough to touch but never touching, he hands me books he knows I’ll love because they’re romantic and he knows I’m the most. I’d forgotten what his room smelt like until I stepped foot inside and I think to myself that this is what winter and memory smell like. Always slow to go, I stand across from him on the porch, smoking a cigarette I only took to prolong a goodbye. But this time he seems to be lingering, too, and when I shiver from the cold, he runs his hands along my arms to warm me but stops short. We hug and part as old friends because that’s all we are a winter later, and even though I know all this, the street still spins as I turn the corner home.