Sleet

The forecast throws out every assault in its arsenal: you wake to find it wasn't lying. There's a crack in the window where the Arctic rushes in, I sit with my feet on the radiator in remedy. What are a few second degree burns against permafrost.

In a surprise twist, I woke breathing today. The action so unfamiliar, not like riding a bike at all, my body creaked and moaned and tip-toed around the momentary lightness like a foreign language. There's no telling how long the reprieve, you tread carefully but bask in the clarity. Watch your brown hands type stories into the world, keep the bigger picture at arm's length, I know there was something I thought my life would come to but perhaps it still will. Someone asked me today to come to a socialist dating event and I thought there's a pot for every lid. I didn't mean it, of course, all I mean is I'm not dying, all I mean is the edge is further away than the tips of my feet, all I mean is you've survived an entire life and you still collect gold coins and stardust, sometimes the cold takes the feeling from your fingertips but when they thaw
good god
are they on
fire.