It’s winter time now - 40 Lines

Writer's Cramp - Some people see Winter as a cleansing. Others see it as an ending.

"It's winter time now." Leaving the figure on the street alone;
Whispering a sentence, claiming the winter for its final throne.
No ringing bells, no hurried warm embrace,
The final diagnosis carved upon her face.

The world outside spun obliviously on, a careless hum;
She walked, a captive ghost, with silent forces numb.
{font :times}Each flake that landed felt like a secret, whispered, falling low,
{fon t:times}To the chilling prayer of one who watched her precious moments go.

The city lights were blurred through a watery gaze,
She saw the world through a new, dying, distorted haze.
The bare-limbed trees stood sentinel against the fading sun,
Their branches reaching, beckoning, as if a final race had begun.

{ font: times}A shadow stirred beneath a lamplit branch, not quite a fleeting form.
A trick of light? A mystery somehow born of the inner storm.
She paused, a chill deeper than winter's bite, and peered with a sudden dread.
The form dissolved, absorbed by the coming night, soft flakes fall from overhead.

{fon t:times}Her footsteps crunched on frozen snow, each sound a loud percussion in the still,
Hollow air, emphasizing the slow, relentless march up winter's bitter hill.
And with each step, a fragment seemed to shift within the city's ancient, cryptic soul.
A whisper, carried on a frosty drift, began to claim a curious, strange control.

She passed a window, fogged with inner heat, where silhouetted figures moved inside,
A family's warmth, a haven, bittersweet, a life from which she softly stepped aside.
{fon t:times}No one to meet her at the journey's end, no welcoming light, no laughter, soft and low;
Just empty rooms, a silence to contend with, as the final winter starts to grow.

A raven landed on a fence nearby, its glint of obsidian and gleam,
It watched her pass with an unnerving eye, as if it knew the secrets of the dream.
{fon t:times}A shiver tracing down her weary spine, she felt a presence, ancient, cold, and deep;
Was this the sentinel, a dark design, To guard the final promises to keep?

The wind picked up, a mournful, drawn-out plea, and rattled signs along the silent street;
A distant chime, a wavering melody, a curious rhythm in the frozen beat.
She wondered if the world, with knowing grace, was painting riddles in her fading sight,
Unveiling mysteries to her slowing pace, before she stepped into the endless night.

She reached her door, a desolate stone face; the key felt heavy and cold in her hand,
The city's secrets clung to the space, A waiting mystery he couldn't understand.
This last winter was not just bleak and grey, but deep and strange.
A final, cryptic, enigmatic way to navigate the inevitable change.

She stepped inside, and the darkness swallowed her. The winter night outside began to fall.
In the quiet, growing stark and dim, she heard the city's enigmatic call.
f font times}The mystery wasn't what the world would take, but what it chose to show her, slow and vast.
As this, her final winter, for her sake, unfolded, secrets meant to last ultimately.

Lines: 40