The new year greets her like soft lips pressing against skin, Hands fisted in her aspirations;The world is different and yet the same.Perspective shifting as she stands higher on the ladder of life,Each rung forged from the fires fought in the previous year. Winter brings the whispers of her future,Blooming before her like a promise land,Inharmonious with the death around her.She clings to it, Tethering her very being to the hope it offers. Everything is less permanent when you are living with timers in your eyes.Freedom so close she can taste it;Like a salt and copper mixture of the blood, sweat and tearsThat broke the shackles off her. Summer brings devastation,And she realizesThat the Sun may be bright and beautiful,But it will burn you.  She doesn’t realize that she is not a Jenga tower,Her form will not mottle with holes of what is gone,Because what leaves is never meant to stay. The leaves change, another notch in this year’s belt,And the crisp air tastes of healing,She should've taken into account that all good things are fleeting. And having screamed until she was hoarse,For her fellow women’s right to peace,She is far too equipped for handling the night,War was ravaged on her body.  A darker storm is brewing still,When election season comes and goes,And she is hit with the crushing weight of being a woman,Shackles clasping back onto her wrists.  New Year’s Eve arrives, Her soul taped together with whispers of promise from her allies, And she collapses into the new year.