seasonal depression

I cry because you're so sweet
and because I want to save all our old love letters
in pickle jars
and give them to our third daughter on her
wedding day.

I cry because I feel her
in the cold November wind
and I can't decipher exactly what she's trying
to tell me
but I feel like I'm missing out on a good joke.

I cry because I hate myself
but not in a girl-who'd-cut-herself-suicide-angst type
of hate myself
More of this hating-that-I-can't-escape-myself type of hate myself
It's ok if you don't get it.

I cry because for almost a decade
the three of us were tangled up like a braid
pleated into my hair
And I was always the strand in the middle.