There is a very specific moment in winter— and everyone knows it, even if they pretend not to—

when you look outside and think:

“Oh. This might be permanent.”

The sun has been doing the bare minimum. The cold has opinions. Your optimism has quietly stepped outside to “take a call. of nature”

And if you’re honest—really honest— you don’t just miss the light.

You miss the certainty that it’s coming back.

Which is awkward, because certainty is not something the universe is big on providing.

So humans did what humans always do when the environment stops cooperating.

We gathered. We lit fires. And we told stories loud enough to drown out the dark.

That’s not poetry.

That’s survival.