she was a wash of milky moonlight
with purple iris veins
her fingernails glimmered like
the insides of shells as she laid
a delicate palm on the sleeping boy's
brow.
"i am your winter, i am your heartbreak"
she whispered into his dreams
and a shadow passed over his slumbering frame,
and it was nothing but night and rain
inside his subconscious.
she left with the scars of past regrets
and frosted jars filled with all the tragedies of
first love
the springs that turned rotten and foul
into a sticky heat  when flower buds die before they bloom.
with slow blinking eyes
the boy awoke
with his chest opened wide.
he clutched at his dilapidated heart
and wished for the icy caress of sleep
to pull him back under.