Today, it snowed and it never snows here in this state and you told me once that this place was madness and I guess that's why we can't have snow because it is quiet and so gentle in nature and maybe we are just too noisy and inconsiderate and God knows we can never have anything white for too long without scuffing it up. I haven't been able to write anything like this about you in a while and for some reason I typed out an apology, about to press SEND like you even knew that I had anything to say about you in the first place. Once, when I was very small, I had a fever and my mother told me I was mumbling in my sleep like I was crazy but she didn't know at the time that I actually was, and somehow I don't think it's sheer madness to conclude that whether you believe in spirits in a bottle that grant your wishes or spirits in a bottle that can only pacify your misery for a night, neither can grant the wishes you may have made when you were cradling  your cheek and your mom was trying to assure that Daddy always loves you. Suddenly, it isn't so insane to think that the glass slipper on the stairs could become your heels on the sidewalk at 1:30 AM and fantasy fades into reality not in a flow of water color, but in an unexpected explosion, and I realize that once upon a time I thought was a flame but I was only on fire, and now all I am is smoldering.