There is snow in my lungs
and though I try to warm my breath
by inhaling the sunbeams of the day
I seem to only speak an icy bitterness.
I used to dream
of singing, of adding to the world notes of amber gold,
but after seasons of unchanging season,
winter has set itself within my bones.
My vocal cords are frozen,
dead shores along white coasts,
waves encased like barreling wails,
burning to break forth.
They rage in me like blizzards,
covering wood and stone in crystal,
coated tears shed by shaded people crumbled
in unlit hearths,
and whose pains crackle in my ears.
To hear! Oh, to hear, loneliness so pure
that on its edge I see my image clear,
and to know! Oh, to know, that even those I hate
carry the same faceless frigid fears.
Is this humanity’s condition?
Doomed to days and deaths,
to wander in the storm,
white-eyed and blind—
Am I,
with small body and fragile mind,
to inhale every sour flake that curdles sky?
If so, I am a miserable host
because my words seem not to melt
or shatter ice,
and there is an iceberg enormous
lodged deep within mankind.
But the sea is wide,
and if I can continue—
continue sailing by star instead of sight,
then along the strips of sun I’ll cast my faith
and set to life
an ember in my chest—
in whose smallness rests the end
of permafrost.
And should it grow—
grow to rage like bead of flaming blood in cold,
then with frostbit hands I’ll grasp
my voice,
thaw the chords,
draw its breath—
and with full stretch
of lungs and heart
I’ll break apart the walls
with a song of avalanche.
