Cranberry Winter

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Photo: Cranberries by Dan Garver

A Cranberry Winter by J9

We had cranberry tea not long ago. It seems like that winter will always be.
We held hands and were protected from the cold. The cold weather was refreshing and inviting. There is always something good about winter here in this town. The leaves don't turn into a special color, not in the same way it happens up north. But the cold breeze brings peace and hope. You brought me hope back in 2009. The moment we started dancing together I knew our tango was going to be special.
Then we would come home after going out for walks and make cranberry tea. Mashed cranberries,  boiling water, and honey. Honey, ginger, cinnamon. And then we had a bright red, velvety, sweet tea. Initially that was your recipe, but it became mine since I added a few ingredients that I liked myself and you accepted the changes. Differently from what happened in the relationship itself.
Our souls infused by tea and tango.
I didn't know that by loving you I was falling into a trap.
Now the cranberries in the photo remind me 
of that winter.
What were we? Why did I go back to you so many times after you disappointed me countless times? 
Why am I still hurt to hurt you and hurt that I had to let you go? 
Over the weekend, I was going to print a photo of us and hang it in the dance room. I guess I was fooling myself once again. I thought there was no harm in doing that, after all I am over you. We were just dancing together and I will look at this photo just like that, a tango photo. 
Until I heard the news that didn't surprise me. 
You're ahead of the game. Your arms belong to someone else already - at least they did at a workshop. Now there's no way back. Hope has left once and for all.
We had been invited to that workshop as a couple.
Suddenly it dawns on me  even our tango is gone,
just like a cranberry winter.

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