Poetry

"Frigid" doesn't quite capture it— this gray, internal dullness settled behind the eyes. Black soot and street-trash blanket the drifts, choking out the pristine until everything is just frozen and ugly. My mood has nowhere else to go. It simply hangs there, stiff as the icicle hooked to the end of my nose. I manage a dry, rattling laugh. Too frozen to speak, yet I see the joke.

As sure as the harvest moon, and sure as hell, I wasn't immune to the shrapnel of your violent heart. I let mine harden until it was brittle as November wood— so you could hear the crunch of it under your boots as you walked over me. I played the part. I told myself God would save you, once He’d finished tallying the heinous marks you left on me. I knelt. I prayed. I had to excise you like a fever— not for my soul, but for the bruises on my neck, and the "falls" that left me bleeding on the floor. I hated how I still struggled to love you. I hated my own stupidity. But when your heart finally quit, I knew my evil god had fallen. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. I didn't have to hide the joy. Instead, I simply told the neighbors that God had finally called you home.