Jun 2011
My black gloves, coat, boots
Make me thick and heavy and slow
I am trudging through this white brick wall
I am tired and dripping.
This snow is ungainly
As it piles on top of the dead
Black, are the silhouettes of branches on drooping trees
Car crash.
Car crash.
Car crash.
I had forgotten that snow makes death unforgotten.
I am a beacon of safety
Inside my warm hut
With my life and my body, attached still.
Snow, sky, same thing.
Both a shocking white,
The color of the white light
Of death, reflected in a black lake
Swallowing everything else whole.
An insulting shade of pale,
Unimaginable in the middle of November.
A white bleached ivory
Your knuckles are that color white,
Bloodless
As they grip the wheel
But your fingertips forget how to drive
Your mind loses all the knowledge
You have gathered over your twenty three years
Your secure little buggy
Is no longer secure
No longer out of harm’s way.
The permafrost inching its way under your wheels
You are a little child learning how to walk,
Slipping and falling,
Reaching for your mama
You really don’t want to go over there
REALLY don’t want to go over there.
Because over there is the ditch.
And you scream “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO”
But who are you yelling at? No one can hear you.
You’re all alone in your little buggy
And the snow muffles you anyway
And you are upside down
god is grabbing you by your ankles and shaking you
Hoping for money to fall out of your pocket
And then you’re right side up
And then upside down
And your brain is sloshing and slopping
All over the upholstery
And the red is all over the windows
Thick paint, splashed over the cracked panes
Your hands are covered in your own gore
Gushing from your thighs and stomach
And you are making so much noise
Why are you yelling?
No one can hear you.
And now you’re dead.
The air in your punctured lungs is frozen.
The blood on the window is turning rusty red crust
And the people in the little buggies next to you
Are watching you as they pass by
Some even fold their hands and pray
But they shouldn’t take their hands off the wheel.
Make me thick and heavy and slow
I am trudging through this white brick wall
I am tired and dripping.
This snow is ungainly
As it piles on top of the dead
Black, are the silhouettes of branches on drooping trees
Car crash.
Car crash.
Car crash.
I had forgotten that snow makes death unforgotten.
I am a beacon of safety
Inside my warm hut
With my life and my body, attached still.
Snow, sky, same thing.
Both a shocking white,
The color of the white light
Of death, reflected in a black lake
Swallowing everything else whole.
An insulting shade of pale,
Unimaginable in the middle of November.
A white bleached ivory
Your knuckles are that color white,
Bloodless
As they grip the wheel
But your fingertips forget how to drive
Your mind loses all the knowledge
You have gathered over your twenty three years
Your secure little buggy
Is no longer secure
No longer out of harm’s way.
The permafrost inching its way under your wheels
You are a little child learning how to walk,
Slipping and falling,
Reaching for your mama
You really don’t want to go over there
REALLY don’t want to go over there.
Because over there is the ditch.
And you scream “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO”
But who are you yelling at? No one can hear you.
You’re all alone in your little buggy
And the snow muffles you anyway
And you are upside down
god is grabbing you by your ankles and shaking you
Hoping for money to fall out of your pocket
And then you’re right side up
And then upside down
And your brain is sloshing and slopping
All over the upholstery
And the red is all over the windows
Thick paint, splashed over the cracked panes
Your hands are covered in your own gore
Gushing from your thighs and stomach
And you are making so much noise
Why are you yelling?
No one can hear you.
And now you’re dead.
The air in your punctured lungs is frozen.
The blood on the window is turning rusty red crust
And the people in the little buggies next to you
Are watching you as they pass by
Some even fold their hands and pray
But they shouldn’t take their hands off the wheel.
