That night; that night, the cold became my friend.
I was broken and I’d missed my train once again.
My coat, with all its holey buttons, did nothing to cull the inevitable.
I wandered–more lost than I’d ever been–into the trees.
How alone I was! No warm bodies, but a bed among the leaves.
I could only shiver against the encroaching darkness.
For all the hours past I could not recount by memory.
Pain transforming minute moments beyond god’s infinity.
The struggle for warmth all too slowly became a losing battle.
As the pounding ticks of nightmare’s time sapped my limbs of feeling
The stars continued their slow spin. Icy cold bore the burden of new meaning.
Slowly; slowly I began a new burning. Cold became comfortable and warm.
In the end I must have drifted off; a smile on my face.
Destined from beginning to leave stiff and frozen trace.
A hunter in the morning came calling for his husky, and instead found me.
Hours had passed since I’d embraced this final embrace, I knew,
So long ready to leave this world and unable to be moved,
I was forcefully hauled away, to lose all control of my fate.
(As if I ever had it to begin with.)
This part of my story so few have yet to know,
I’ve managed to keep hidden that I’m missing several toes.
But I don’t miss them. It was past time that they go.
Gemini's Lament 