It's Cold

I think that I like the cold because it makes me feel awake.

It reminds me that I am alive as it bites me,

Burns my lungs and turns my skin to stone.

My teeth crash together in protest or riot,

But it's a welcome reprieve to the constant clench of my jaw,

Or the frustration of that one stray thought

That reminds me of my tongue

And how it doesn't fit its space between my teeth quite right.

Maybe it makes me feel fresh again,

When I have spent so long feeling stale.

Like a disapproving eye could spot the dust that piles

On my bones,

Accumulating with the ashes of lost thoughts

And desiccated memories.

It brings the reminder of that joy

That accompanies the first snowfall.

Yet it is not boastful,

Hiding its beauty in near microscopic detail.

Content in its impermanence,

A brief, chaotic art

Balanced on the precipice between

Autumnal endings

And

Spring rebirth.

There is something in its silence

That I envy,

Like the quiet comes from the breath it steals

Or the solitude of the mornings that it frequents

And I find myself wishing I could replace parts of me

With it,

To pile up a snow-bank for my thoughts

To tumble into

or to bury themselves beneath.

I wish I was the cold.

To make others feel awake,

Alive.

To elicit shivers and raised hairs and

Make people forget their bad habits.

I want to sweep away that film of grime

That coats them on the inside

And replace it with stunning fractals of frost.

I want to be the bliss of frozen silence

A bated breath stolen from

Splitting smiles.

I want to be all the things I love,

The hidden things most of all.