Fleeting Images

It’s like placing a burning hand on the smoothiest silk, absorbing the complacent cold that seems to emanate from it. Refreshing. Invigorating. It alleviates the scalding traces of a handprint.

I speak without realizing what I’m saying, or considering the implications behind it. I speak without really saying anything at all, and end up sounding impertinent. I speak because the silence surrounding another source of heat and I is discomfiting, empty, and frozen. I never liked the feeling of a gust of icy wind expanding in me and causing my aura to lose its glow. Frozen fingertips, a winter nose, and snow numbing a world capable of producing warming sunshine.

Winter…something I am not ready for.
I am not ready to feel the familiarity of sorrow burn up my thoughts and set my life ablaze, amidst bare-branched trees and the intoxicating cold. I am not ready to return to a constant state of numbness, where not even sparks of anger are capable of burning it away. I will begin to feel my skin become dry and pale, the shadows beneath my stubby eyelashes to darken, and then the ice will settle in. I will open my window late on a weeknight and watch the snow fall like millions of feathers, floating softly in the biting wind. I will let that wind raise goosebumps, my teeth will chatter, and my durability will fall away all together. I will feel nothing, I will be nothing.

I will look in the mirror and touch my fingertips to those sapphire shadows, letting them slide over an expanse of paleness until they drop away. I will stare past the muddy depths of my irises, into the lightlessness of my pupils, and I will wince at what I see. Nothing.

It’s scary. Every winter it’s the same…I begin to fold in on myself, drawing in until it’s not possible to reach me anymore. My smiles appear as though they are held there by glue that is gradually unsticking. I will see the hopelessness and the dark inevitability of everything. I will go on long walks in the dark, my shoes submerged in snow, the cold creeping inside my jacket. Tears will freeze on my face. The dark monster that causes the red to seep through my skin will retaliate with a vengence due to its nine-month suppression.

A gray glow will be cast on the walls in my room, which bear the same shade without the luminosity. I will lie in bed,  staring at the various pieces of my life taped to the walls, and have a nearly unsuppressable desire to tear them all down. I will want to tear out my long, dark hair..I will want to tear away every piece of me that I ever took pride in. Because I will feel like nothing.

I am not eager to face this season once again.
I am not eager to face myself; dark and twisted through the gloomy eyeglass of winter.
Why do I feel this way?
I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Until my mood shifts once again,
Amanda