It is cold today.
The snow comes down in white clouds
Heavy and wet
And I bend beneath it
Like the tree branches that brush the ground in fatigue.
There is no passion in a snowstorm
No lightning
Only weight.

I sat up last night
Waiting.
It was very late
When I finally laid down to sleep
And I had spent so much anguish
That I had run clean out
And slept well.
I awoke this morning
Less afraid than I thought I would be
Somehow embalmed in the night,
Coated in my own version of silent frost,
Even as the world went white and grey outside my windowpane.
Now I am waiting again
And I do not feel sick
Only very tired
And I think the secret must be either to stay awake all night
Or sleep all day.
I love sleep. It's the waking that gets me.
Cold like falling through black ice.
Hot like the metallic tang of blood when you've slipped in the snow and gone down,
Down.

The escape, though
Is worth the return
And for the first time I wonder
If when I am asleep I am as barren and lifeless as the world is
When it hibernates for the winter.
Maybe I hate the cold
But maybe the land needs to burrow beneath itself
And hide under its blankets
And find numbness for a few months
In order to bloom again without crumbling to ashes.
Maybe all this time
I thought winter was my punishment
When it was only
The earth's rest.

I am waiting
On the sun to tell me
Whether I am rising or setting.
Whether I should sleep all day
Or wait up
All night.