Cold Feet

I’m sorry. I don’t even know where to begin, because what I did isn’t something that fits neatly into words. I know your body must still be in shock—that the memory of it doesn’t just live in your mind, but lingers in you, surfacing when you least expect it. And I know there are moments when the thought of what I did makes you shudder, like your whole being is trying to recoil from it. I hate that I am the cause of that, that I put something so heavy and unsettling into your world. I could feel your body going into shock and the goosebumps rising on your arms. Your stillness as you lie there makes me feel guilty, especially when you suck in air with your teeth. However, I also need to be honest: sorry but I am not sorry.

Our floors are relentlessly cold, the kind that seem to seep upward and settle into your bones. I wander them barefoot anyway. Sometimes with nothing but a thin, useless layer of socks, until the chill claims my feet completely, turning them numb and unfeeling. By the time I slip into bed, it’s as if winter has followed me there. So when you come in, I don’t just want to warm them—I need to, pressing them against you like I’m a cold blooded reptile chasing heat, like you’re the only sun that exists, I’ve carried in with me the cold winter that surrounds my body and sadly you are the victim of warming up my feet. I reach my foot to your feet and I instantly feel my body warm up, even though I go to bed earlier than you. This is something that I live with as a woman I get cold faster and I know you don’t have that issue. So, I will continue using your feet to warm up mine.

I think we work so well as a couple because we balance each other in ways neither of us could alone. Your feet run too warm, almost restless with heat, and I arrive carrying the opposite—cool, steady, grounding. I don’t see it as a flaw; I see it as a kind of quiet symmetry. I am your ice on a sweltering July afternoon, the relief you didn’t know you needed until it’s there.

When you walk through desert and you come to those stretches of heat, of intensity, of long days that seem to press in on you and right before you want to give up: I am the place where the air shifts. I am the lake you stumble upon in the middle of summer, unexpected and calm, something you can sink into and breathe again. And maybe I’m even more than that. Maybe I’m the long, quiet winters to your short, blazing summers(the contrast that makes everything feel sharper, more alive, more meaningful.)

Because without the cold, the warmth doesn’t feel the same. Without the stillness, the energy burns out too fast. We don’t just exist side by side—we temper each other. And I think that’s why this works as well as it does. Your the yin to my yang and so forth. I think by now you understand what I am trying to articulate.

Having a true apology would mean I would have to change this behaviour, however you and me know that is never going to happen. My feet are never going to be warm going to bed. They will always remain cold as somehow the cold follows me, it hunts for me and finds my feet. So I will continue placing my cold feet and your body will continue to go into shock every night. Remember, that I am the one who cannot feel their feet, yet I still get up to the bathroom and I still stand in the kitchen to grab water, I will return with cold feet and once again I will be searching for your warmth. Sorry, but I am not sorry.