i didn't wear my hat, i know
i should have, but i felt rebellious
in some small way, i tried to cheat the day
and paid in tingling pain, sharp aching corners
and a strange sense of pride in my bones warmed me
until just the tips of my ears were left white, dead
yes, dead
but i felt alive

to be in danger and know it, to press on against the cold
to push forward into the wind, though before you is only white
to turn blindly into the storm, to accept the blizzard's strength
to guess what lies ahead in fear and still take the risk
this, to me
is courage

maybe i'm just talking about frostbite like some romantic wound
or maybe we're in danger, you and i
pressing on into the storm despite numbing fingers
smiles frozen, eyes watery
maybe we'll get frostbite in our hearts
but i think it's worth the risk

Frostbite fingertips, chilly they are,
Far more appealing than the faraway stars.
That's why my eyes turn to you during winter night,
Your frostbite fingertips, caressing my cheek are light.

Just as dreams are for dreamers, love is for lovers,
And that passionate feeling around us hovers.
Others doubt, but the stars above know,
When compared to our passion, dim is their glow.

Your fingertips, cold on this snowy night,
Rejuvenate me and emblazon my life with light.
If hypothermia were to claim me now,
I hope others wouldn't long ponder how.

I'll lose myself in you any day of the year,
Even during winter, you resolve my fear.

Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill

Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.

My skin is frying, I can't stop crying, I feel like I'm dying.
Your touch soothes my fever, your arms hold me together, your bed is my grave.
...
  This flame of desire inside me burning so bright,
only you can save me on this night.
...
Here I lay dripping with desire,
for your arrival to calm my fire.
  Fill me, tempt me, push me to the limit,
with your burning, chilling touch of Frostbite,
Please save me this night!
...
Call me your "Good Girl", pet me, Play,
withdraw your heat and watch me sway,
Please Sir, don't take this blissful feeling away.
...
I wait on my knees by your side,
Not because I am expected to,
but because it is where I feel safest.
...
**** me roughly, love me tenderly
Strip me bare till there's nothing left, build me up and tear me apart
In your calloused hands, I place my tender heart.
...

We were both love. I was a rose and you were a snowflake. Both beautiful and gentle but unable to coexist effectively because flowers can’t blossom in the cold.

Yet when it ended, the truth became misconstrued.
Suddenly I was a thorn that pricked you till you bled.
And you were frostbite that nipped away at my skin.

We created false portrayals of each other to make this all a bit easier to deal with.

But the truth will always stay.

We were both beauty, purity, fragility, love.
We just weren’t meant to give our love to each other.

And now we both bleed, because the hardest part is accepting we were never meant to be.

Sweet rippled midnight, poured
silver chilled cubes shiver
icicles cuddle
a tent hung huddle
priceless frostbite savored
mornings warming drip,
lovely defrost

When I was young and lonely,
yet wise enough,
I'd slipped off my skin and held it out to you
and you accepted it. I'd been left with bare bones, then.
And as I handed over my lips and eyebrows and fingernails,
You accepted those, too.
Next I'd slipped out my heart and offered you it,
But you refused to take it, and so
I'd realised I was left without a coat
in the cold winter's blight.
Nothing but a skeleton, as frostbite
bit at me and I'd stood shivering,
my skin in your hands,
my heart in mine.
The wind hit my back and sent through me shudders
and I pleaded for you to give back what had once been mine.
But you just stood with eyes like glass, and wordlessly
you let me know it was helpless.
One by one, I felt my bones begin to freeze
from my toes and swiftly traveling up.
I couldn't tell then if my shaking came from cold
or if it was the blizzard of emotions burying me.
At my fingertips I could sense
the heart which I still cradled in my hands start to grow rigid
and it's beating grew ever more mechanical,
losing all energy and life,
working routinely and with passion gone.
Time stopped altogether and we stood, unmoving.
A fleeting warmth, a single hot tear—
it barely left my eye before becoming solid.
And the silence broke with the sound of your footsteps
but there I stayed in stunned paralysis,
my eyes locked on the remains of me
that you had ****** at my feet
and the cold heart I still held.
I picked myself up and slipped me back on,
the same as I had been before.
But my heart I kept frozen, though now it's aware
and I won't make that misstep again.
With a heart not my own, I'll continue,
untrusting—
the only part of you I let myself keep.

april cut into the city
in long fingernail scratches
of running water and suddenly brown gardens
and the air fell heavy onto the eaves
of houses eager to open their doors

i stepped out and spoke
into a space filled with spring
just trying to hurry things along, i guess
trying to warm the air
trying to clear the path
trying to make some sense of this transition

i stepped out, leaned forward
and spoke
too soon, i guess
because the mercury sank coldly back into the glass
and the rain became needles, the trees thread
threatening to sew winter back into the sky
and the air retreated back
into a dull winter chill
as if afraid of my open chest
displaying december's frostbite
and january's cold words

and i apologized silently
to the city and myself
for thinking winter could be defeated so easily