Northern Latitude Poem by Henrietta Ezegbe

There is a kind of tired
that does not come from work
but from being necessary.

The cold teaches this well—
how everything contracts,
how even breath must be measured,
how survival becomes ritual
rather than choice.

You stand at the edge of a long becoming,
hands full of other people's weather,
carrying what was never itemized,
never thanked,
never returned.

The phone goes quiet.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to hear
your own pulse again.

It hurts—
this noticing.
The way absence reveals
what presence was made of.

Still, you remain.
Not heroic.
Not saved.
Just human,
in a tiny abode,
on a spinning planet,
doing the best you can
with what you were given
and what you were asked to give.

This chapter is narrow.
It feels like forever
because it is cold
and unfinished.

But seasons do not ask permission
before ending.

Tonight, let the world be unsolved.
Let responsibility loosen its grip.
Let quiet be neutral, not ominous.

You are still here.
That is not nothing.

And tomorrow—
not hope, not certainty—
just continuation.

That is enough.