Words: Didi Marina Salonia (She/Her)
Listen, winter doesn’t fuck about with pleasantries. It comes at you raw and real, like truth after midnight, like memories that bite. Each morning writes itself in goosebumps and shivers, in the way your fingers curl against the cold like frightened animals seeking shelter.
The darkness – oh, the darkness! It’s got hands these days, grabbing at the hours, stealing daylight like a thief with nothing left to lose. You stand at your window watching frost build its mad geometries, nature’s graffiti telling stories you can almost read, almost touch, before the sun comes and wipes the slate clean like it’s hiding evidence. Your breath ghosts in front of your face, and isn’t that the perfect metaphor for everything? We’re all just temporary spirits here, marking our presence in small clouds that vanish before we can grab them.
Winter strips us bare, peels away our pretences like old wallpaper. It leaves us standing in our truth whether we’re ready for it or not. We armour ourselves against it, wool, down, determination. Build fortresses of fabric around our fragile forms, knowing damn well it’s not enough. The cold always finds its way in, like old memories do; like doubt, like love. It’s got skeleton keys for all our locks. We walk differently in winter, don’t we? All hunched and hurried, like we’re carrying secrets. Like we’re running from something that’s already caught us.
But here’s the magic, here’s the burn and beauty of it all: in these frozen months, we create heat. Like revolutionaries, our kitchens become speakeasies of warmth, serving up steam and stories and laughter that bounces off walls strung with lights that spit in the face of darkness. We gather like conspirators, like lovers, like survivors, transforming cold into connection, distance into dance. Some mornings are a fucking war with yourself. The bed holds you like a lover begging you to stay, while the day stands outside like a debt collector, demanding its due. You become a philosopher at 4 p.m. when the sun clocks out early, leaving you to contemplate the universe in a sky so clear it hurts your heart.
Winter doesn’t ask for permission to change you. It just does, like time, like truth, like love. But the joys are as pure as the first snow, aren’t they? That silence, like the world has pressed pause, like every atom is holding its breath. The way bare branches write poems against grey skies, the way city lights paint aurora on low clouds. Even the most cynical bastards among us remember how to play when snow transforms the world into something new, something possible. Winter teaches us that everything’s connected, the pain and pleasure, the solitude and intimacy, the challenge and triumph. They’re all notes in the same wild song, aren’t they? Those quiet moments when you can hear your thoughts crystallizing in frozen air, they give weight to our celebrations, depth to our connections.
These days, winter has become optional, hasn’t it? When the cold sets up shop in your bones, you can hop a plane, chase the sun south like a lover running from commitment. Our ancestors might’ve killed for this choice, but maybe they knew something that we are forgetting. There is power in witnessing a season’s full story; in letting it carve new shapes into your soul. But here’s the truth, raw and real: knowing when to run is its own kind of wisdom.
Winter teaches us that survival’s got many faces. Sometimes it looks like endurance, sometimes like escape. Its final lesson? The sun’s always shining somewhere, and there’s no shame in following the light.
HemisFears
The darkness grabs with greedy hands tonight,
While frost writes stories in the fading light.
Our breath becomes a ghost that fades too soon,
Like secrets whispered to the winter moon.
We build our armour layer by careful layer,
Each woollen shield a desperate prayer,
But cold seeps in through every crack and seam,
Like doubt that trickles through a broken dream.
In kitchens warm we stage our rebel dance,
Each gathering a passionate romance,
Where steam rises like spirits from our cups,
And laughter melts the ice that interrupts.
The snow falls silent as a lover’s sigh,
While city lights paint auroras in the sky.
We learn to play in white-transformed streets,
Where childhood memories and wisdom meet.
When winter strips us to our naked truth,
We find both age’s wisdom, dreams of youth,
Some chase the sun across the hemispheres,
While others stay to face their frozen fears.
