January
A cold distant woman
She sits on her cold throne
Ruler for one month
She is bitter
People resent her reign
She comes at the end of her joyous brother
People hunch their woolen shoulders
They scrunch their necks at her presents
Fuzzy hats low over eyes
They shut her out
Embittered she freezes them
Freezes out the mumbles
Frowns upon the small bundled creatures
Feels guilt for punishing them
Fears they are right to hate her
She thaws
They loosen their scarves and hats
The snow turns to slush
They complain once again
Ice crawls up her throat
Nothing matters
She warms
They complain
She is cold
They complain
There is no joy for her reign
No merriment like her brother
No flowering beauty like her sister
No brittle joy like her dark brother
She chills
If they will hate her
She will give them a good reason
They shuffle by the bundled creatures
ABOUT RACHEL
Rachel Rickards is an undergraduate student at Eastern Washington University. She was born in California and raised in Spokane. She is engaged to a military man and will be moving back to California by the end of the year. She is a fiction writer who dabbles in poetry and has never been published in either genre. "January" was made as a part of a collection of poems about all the months as kings and queens; this was the first poem in that collection. Her Instagram is @rachelrickards645.