Of Frost and Men

I come in

thin, a ghost of a blade,

testing the seams of your clammy little world.

The air stiffens under my touch

the way

a sinner stiffens under truth.

I slow things down so

delicately

you’d think the universe were holding its breath for me,

not for you with your frantic pulse

and your desperate need to feel

alive.

-

Spring clings to the edges like a drunk girl at last call,

all dew-soaked and hopeful,

smelling of sap

and sweat

and promises she can’t keep.

She twirls around shouting renewal

as if repetition were a miracle.

I let her twirl. Hang around.

Bide my time, because

someone has to bury her.

-

I settle deeper.

The ground whitens,

the rivers drag their feet,

and the world begins its exquisite decrescendo

into the hush where

revelation breeds.

This is the moment I hunger for,

that thin, perfect aperture

where creation almost turns its face toward

me,

where geometry quivers

and the divine becomes a rumour made briefly flesh.

But you won’t let me have it.

-

You creatures of thermodynamics

ruin everything.

You flare your useless heat into every crevice,

sweating, fidgeting, meddling,

as if warmth were authority.

You chase me back like I’m vermin,

scalding the air, shaking the equilibrium,

keeping frost at bay as if this world were

yours

I was here before your accursed fire,

before your furnaces and your forges

and your mythmaking.

You turned me into ice queens and Elsas,

crowned me in tropes I never asked for,

costumed me in your fear of stillness.

Ridiculous.

Insulting.

-

I hate you for

mistaking motion for meaning.

For worshipping heat like it’s a god

and silence like it’s a threat.

For trampling calm, shattering poise,

fracturing the single pure thing

I ever tried to protect.

-

You

will never understand what I hold

sacred. Never

the chill where thought clarifies,

where truth rings like struck crystal,

where the world finally shuts up

long enough for God to show

Their face.

.