Cold

frost sets in to my fingers and wrists

stiff fingers fumble with lighter and cigarette

blue climbing up my arm

spreading like frozen gangrene

it gnaws its way down to my bones

sucking out my marrow, poisoning my blood

I feel it worm through my tenderer organs

when it reaches my heart I think I'll die

I came to learn to love the cold,

to fear the hearth being burned there

to hate the heat the murmuring inside

the crackling of a bonfire of hair

Ice on the wind clawing down my throat

harsh as the first few breaths of the drowning

cold air on my cold lungs

going down like cheap whiskey and cheap smokes

Ice in the tumbler, Ice in the whiskey

and drags off a menthol cigarette

I take a few little sips of death

it warms me.