Frost Queen

The corporeal chill stiffens as Fall fades and air thins, bowing to the first.

I cower cross-legged in dampness, beneath her cadaverous snow-mounted stare, for she knows I. The tremulous temper of blitzkrieg blizzards is nigh on this horizon.

She calls me querulous; I call her quintessential. Sleet forms forevermore.

My hoary fingers captain snow-white skin like coated soil; once supple? Now likened to bone, so I trace arch-nemesis sunspots on frost-laden, fringe-dwelling, leaves stiffening mid-curl.

The trees are rooted with indignity. And those branches?!? They crack and capitulate like downcast drumbeats.

Scents shift from smoky felled acorns and aristocratic sap, unto iron and metallic petal rot.

Sleeping awake, numb to your touch, until NOW. Nevermore is noxious nexus wrapped up in bitter, last-gasp-for-last-light nihilism. Why does this sylvan expanse resist? Shedding honeyed bark like arrhythmic drops of treacle.

It's necromancy in a way, as she ushers in polar astringency for a fight for survival amid still-breathing revival.

The ice queen with a nadir mind, a necropolis crown. One touch draws blue blood from my pale finger.

Glimmers of beige and tan give way to her stony, icy cool temple of white rime. No remorse, lachrymose pain from silt to soil to sundown, and ubiquity for the sake of unguent lathering.

A gelid, darksome kingdom of woe beckons. This first siren sound of her second coming is prime. Of all four interlacing seasons, the aromantic lesson to heed is this...

She of Winter casts the strongest spell - of silence.

(c) Edward Swafford 2025

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