do you ever start chinking away
breaking, cracking the stone, hard mineral, steel cold
barrier of your heart
so it'd be impossible for someone else
to do it for you?

white wine pungent, soft
clinking glass against an empty chasm
sunlight
hard wood draped in sleeping veneer.

cascading drapes against
violet
         dark
                 stagnant bruised skin left alone and slowly freezing over.
smoke leaking through whispering
dry lips chapped with desert words
lack of moisture creating canyons
hidden inside desperate mouths.

it's breaking like a frozen over
ashy, navy, drowning lake.
my own fault,
i always start breaking my own heart.
my own form of life insurance.

it's fogged over like a magnifying glass,
cracking across the two foot surface because
the strangled fish can't breathe under all
the permafrost and ice.

i'm waiting impatiently for summer;
i hate this cold.