The Zipped Face at the Edge of Winter

The Zipped Face at the Edge of Winter

She stands between two endings,

one side quiet as untouched snow,

the other heavy with hidden fracture,

a line drawn down the centre of her being,

not a scar, not a wound, but a choice,

held closed by something colder than steel,

a silence fastened into place.

Her eyes do not match the world behind her,

one holds light like a promise half broken,

the other burns with something unspoken,

as if it has seen the cost of opening,

as if it knows what waits beneath the seam,

where truth does not arrive gently,

but tears through like winter wind.

The chess pieces stand unmoving at her feet,

kings without command, without voice,

their gold dulled by the waiting game,

because this is not a match of moves,

this is a stillness that decides everything,

a breath held too long in the cold,

a moment stretched past mercy.

What would happen if she unzipped it,

if the divide gave way to what is hidden,

would the world behind her collapse,

would the snow melt into something darker,

would the pieces fall, no longer certain,

or would nothing change at all,

except the weight she carries inside.

There is something fragile in her stillness,

not weakness, but restraint,

the kind that builds beneath quiet surfaces,

the kind that fractures without warning,

and yet she does not move,

she does not reach for release,

she remains, perfectly divided, perfectly whole.

Winter leans closer, listening,

the trees hold their breath in shadow,

even the water waits without ripple,

because something here is deciding itself,

something unseen, something final,

and when it shifts, when it breaks,

there will be no returning to before.

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