‘Are you ready for the cold?’

—- I was born and bred for it, like a dry nose before the nosebleed. an anchoring of the titanic. a mosaic of carved words in a cold fireplace wall. an iceberg, surely breaking. flipping and flipping. ‘this side of the pillow is always the coolest’, and this side holds all of the memories. I’m just sinking, slowly, lights still on. a party. the music still playing. I’m just trying to decipher the morse code in the last gusts of everest air. I’m just the cool conditions of confliction. just freezing over, slightly thawed, like that last spark of fire before the tundra hits. hard.