I wanted to write a poem about the silence of a snowy walk. I wanted to talk about the feeling of cold air on clean skin and the serene silence when no cars dared to crunch the quiet. I wanted to write about something quiet. Something calming. Something that folded nicely into prose and laid out before me on paper.

Instead, I put pen to paper and found anxiety along with that silent walk, and I remembered the opposite of what I wished to incite.

I remembered instead the coldness sharpening some mascara clouded
tears and a walk to escape.

I remembered the cool air fueling an anger and the glimmer of hope that someone would rescue me from the cold that was melted away by a silent phone and continued footsteps up the hill with none behind.

I remember a girl sitting under an outdoor roof, shielding her face from the falling ice, all the while realizing that escape would mean a return to fear.

I remember that you have subtly ruined happy thoughts: a family vacation, Christmas-time, snowy walks, the summer sun's now dismal rays.

And thought of all the whimsy, wonder, and excitement that left with the snowy days.