Eggnog with Rum

The house holds its silence like breath on a bitter night, and I sit within it, frail against the vastness of winter pressing at the windows. There is eggnog with rum, no fire in the hearth, only the thin heat of the lamp, the scratch of my pen, and the weight of the stillness that settles everywhere.

Winter’s chill is not merely a coldness of air. It is alive, creeping in through the cracks, wrapping itself around my shoulders, and seeping into my marrow. I feel it there, not only in the shiver of my hands but how it slows the world, turning heavy and sluggish. It is a deep, quiet ache that belongs to this season, a kind of emptiness that asks questions and offers no answers.

And yet, I write. My fingers, numb as they are, find their way to the pen, and the pen finds its way to the paper. The words come haltingly at first, stuttering like footsteps on an icy path. They feel fragile, as insubstantial as the frost that disappears with the first touch of sunlight. But they are all I have to keep the dark at bay, so I press on.

As I write, the words take shape, surprising me. They don’t warm me the way a fire might, don’t chase the cold from the corners of the room. But they do something stranger as they rise from the quiet, from the chill itself, as if the cold had to press hard enough for me to crack and let the words spill out.

I realize then that the cold and the quiet are not merely my adversaries—they are part of this work. They hollow me out, leave me raw, exposed, where in emptiness, the words find space to grow. They are not warm words, not soft or comforting. They are hard-edged and honest, reflecting the frost on the windows, the bare branches clawing at the sky, and the endless stretch of white beyond the glass.

Winter will not let me forget its presence, and I don’t try to. Instead, I lean into it, let it carve its mark upon me, and give it form on the page. As the cold remains, the chill still deep in my bones, the words, too, remain.

And somehow, they are enough.