It doesn’t snow
here very often
but when it does
it’s bitterly cold
the kind of cold
that blows up your jumper
and won’t leave
no matter how many layers you pile on,
the kind of cold
that whistles deep into your ear drums
and lays a fearsome
frost on all your extremities.
A cold that
constantly whips around your exposed forehead
chattering
noisily though you can never make out
a cognizant
sound never mind a word. So much chatter
but nothing to
go on, nothing to ease the chilling pains.
A distant cold
that will never explain itself clearly
but will insist
on mustering on dolefully
muttering between
incoherent grumps and groans
making you feel
as though you were to blame
for all this
damn coldness freezing your fingertips
scorching your
tongue on the too hot hot chocolate he gave you.
The kind of cold
that watches your tears roll
and has nothing
to say to them..The kind of cold
that leaves without due courtesy
leaving you wondering
if you truly exist
or are just a
fragment of the cold’s imagination,
or your own - and
who are you anyway, with or without the cold?
It starts of as
just a few falling flecks
that you could
easily dismiss as rain -
unpleasant but
to be expected, then, before you know it
the ground is
covered in slippery gloom and white fear settles
on the roof of
your heart, your mind’s pavements
turn invisible underneath
the grey slush,
and in the sorry
light of a streetlamp
a torrent of
frosty flakes tumbles senselessly
around the
corners of this wretched afternoon.
You turn
indoors, turn away, tear your mind from ice
to less
overwhelming matter, wipe away
remaining tears,
find a tissue to mop up the snuffles,
blow out the
whole day, inhale a breath of silence
and feel
grateful that it doesn’t snow here very often.
