cold things are hard things.
hard to love, hard to feel, hard to hold onto.
they repel with their frigidity, their sharpness, their intensity.
(and still some dare to dream of catching a snowflake on their tongue.)
they are bitter and raw, yet beautiful and keen. their frozen layers are thick, but transparent; you know a cold thing when you see it.
and it sees you. it always sees you.
aloof they appear, but inside, they are afraid.
yes, the majestic, pale and mighty winter knows fear! those arctic hearts stop, and icy fingers tremble, when met with warmth. the fire is too bright, too warm, too honest; the sun will melt their barriers, expose their nakedness like newborn babes.
they fear to be vulnerable, to be seen beneath their frosted veils.
(they are monsters, they must be; for they are different.)
and some cold things, in their terror, in their panic, become even colder. so cold they hurt, so cold they sting, so cold they burn.
they freeze and harden themselves, make their heart into a tundra, barren and numb. it is no-man’s-land; forbidden ground.
they become so condensed inside themselves, this no trespassing zone. so thick and dense is their polar armor, it suffocates them; crushes them, blinds them. they are isolated, unable to see the world they abandoned.
they cannot even cry out for help.
for even if they could, if they did, and by some miracle they were heard, the moment someone touches them, with fingers light as a feather: they shatter. they break, splinter and crack, so tightly held were they,
in this: their precious cocoon of ice.
in this: their self-constructed, self-confined prison.
in this: their home, that never felt like home.
in this: their sanctuary, that killed them.