My Beige Sweater

My beige sweater

Is as old as me, or older

It used to originally be - off-white, egg-shell-white

As decades past, it's full blown beige now

It's got tiny embroidered peach roses

And a couple buttons missing

It's not a fashion item

My beige sweater 

Is a shelter

In shivering sunless winter mornings

A refuge, from cold hopeless nights

It's something I clutch on to 

I don't remember how I got it though 

Though I distinctly remember never buying it

It perhaps just showed up

In my dress rack 

A hand-me-down, from an older cousin

Or aunt

And every winter, without fail

It's stood by me, fit me smugly 

Warmed my blood

Calmed my skin

Weathered me, in my perennial morass 

Through my joyless existence, marred with fears and doubts

Wearing this, 

I have rushed through countless December mornings

Packing lunches, folding clothes, doing dishes, watering my plants, chomping my omelettes, watching TV, reading the paper, waiting, thinking, not-thinking, giving up, letting go, crying, weeping, wailing, bursting out, napping, running errands, hoping, praying, hoping some more. 

So many many mornings

So many damn years

Of achieving nothing in particular 

Nothing of note

Feeling that life's slipping though my fingers like sand

But my beige sweater has remained 

With me

And I cherish it so.