Nos Langues Nous Trompent

I

i seem to have, over the median part of the year, forgotten what winter is like, that chilling monochromatic expanse of... everything and nothing and death (i see black and white... you see only grey). perhaps i have only forgotten what winter at night is like: i know these hills from a childhood of sledding, seizing those precious seven and a half hours of daylight, but adulthood seems to mean darkness all the time. or perhaps i've forgotten walking in winter: the teeth of the wind, slush in my socks, sloping white sheets draped carelessly over surfaces of every angle.

barring either of those, perhaps it's just that the onset of winter was disproportionately short and i find myself in the midst of the season with little time to prepare. the night weighs on me heavy, a cityful of wet snow, but i still dress twenty degrees warmer than i should. it is one thing to look and not touch; another thing entirely to be trapped inside – i long to return to a world you've denied me.

is it possible i make these mistakes intentionally, if only to remind myself of what has returned and what is lost? i still need these yearly reprisals. sometimes i can't help feeling numb through and through. the cold reminds me that i am here. i am alive. i am aware of my body in ways summer does not provide. self-existence comes trickling back, like an afternoon snowmelt down the edge of the street.

before i leave my house i have already made up my mind to take the bus to my destination – yet the moment i step outside i have already, inexplicably, decided to walk. the beauty is so overwhelming, i can't help but think it may just be time to look rather than merely see. i have forgotten the flawlessly smooth fields of snow, the clarity of dusk air, the ice crystallized on tree branches like winter glass only wishing to make it through the night. had i brought paper and pen with me i could sit in the snow, disregard the chill seeping into my bones, attempt to capture the stark essence of this snowglobe i have found myself inside. i fear that waiting too long to transfer it into written word will only dull the details and fog my view. words written over time only serve to paint these days a clearer shade of black.


II

yet – in the end – it is all in vain. can you hold a handful of sunrise to grace a lover with its warmth? can you paint a rainbow and look through to the other side? we only make imitations of a world, so skewed by our own perception that it appears we are the conductors of a new perfection. seeking sanctuary in the written word to make the inspiration visible – audible – touchable. to create a world from dust – that is what it means to be our own deities. our words forever fall short like dying leaves in a late autumn breeze, never making it further than the tree which bore them.

should it be enough to attempt? i would settle for capturing this dichotomy in words, this love-hate acquaintanceship with the depths of midwinter, as beauty and bitter cold fight to seize the breath from my lungs. human creation manifests as a snowglobe microcosm, a tiny city within a glass orb, white drifts tinted with human ideals and wishes. shake it and watch dreams fall, all of the grace and none of the chill. this is only a fraction of the same worth, but art is all we have to offer, never to recompense the experiences we've borrowed.

valium summertimes darken our eyes and dampen our passion with sweat-sticky complacency. our souls echo the dust that forms us but which we will never fully comprehend. my heart whispers in forms that twenty years of reason and cognition have rendered useless. a look, a touch, a heartbeat – eternally inimitable. it is only in winter’s death grip that i truly know i am alive.


III

i long for the sense of warmth again, but no matter how long one waits or how far one travels, the chill inside is a feeling that never leaves. it remains in our blood forever. lost grey pictures of my past stain greener pastures of my future. our hearts are coated with ice and to let it melt would be to defy the very principles that make us human.