my blood runs cold. jagged streams
of frozen consciousness, a polar sea, ice
juts, crashes, shatters,
scraping crags stab at concrete
cinder block clouds.
the sky stabs back.
the sea is alone with the ice.
even the black water below the brutal crust of crystals
is violent, ragged, and strange to itself. the ice the
ice the ice is cracking like sickly lips forcing
a brittle smile.
the ice is alone with the sky. alone with the bitter
knives of chilling imagination, slipping unwelcome fingers
under your coat, impossible to brush away.
the cold grips you from within, a tyrant, the blades
of the wind work their way under your clothes
against your resistance, you grimace at the cold laugh
of the evil air,
goosebumps push out from your skin,
on your arms, across your breasts, as if to say,
no, please, no, stop, don't touch me,
a tiny struggle of warmth is easily overpowered,
the mind is torn from prayer, bludgeoned, hurled
against the iron bars of cruel possibility, gripped by the throat,
the soul is sick, terrified, eyes darting, mouth mumbling frantic
pleas to no one, there is a crash,
a sudden blow,
a brutal crush of steel, a scream locked in a choking throat,
asphyxiating uncertainty strangling struggling lungs,
a metallic crumpling, a crumbling,
waifish hope limps from the shame of the scene, and
the sky is alone with the sea.