I whisper your name into the darkness
And the tender light of dawn weaves it back to me
In a sunbeam that eclipses my eyes
I awake gasping with the taste of you burning my throat
You should not have followed me into the light here
All my memories of you are red rooms and bedsheets
Music with a heavy bass and the moon catching
On the sweat of our skin
I was always cold around you
Our heady breaths misting the air
You the tundra I travelled through
Crawled along the ice sheet of your body
Cut myself and crept bleeding
Hypothermia was quick gasps and a long exhale
Toes curling and frostbitten
I think the kisses you blew on my neck killed me
Or at least, I do not remember spring
Only your outline on the bed frosted over
I alone in a dark room with every star hidden
They say in an avalanche you can’t remember which way is up
And victims dig deeper trying to free themselves
In this, I do not know if I am the stiff fingers in the snow
Or simply the weight of a thousand lifetimes that were not for us
But I know intimately the unearthed corpse found 6 months later
Finally thawed enough to scream again
Moan a name that was not yours into a darkness
One that you had never touched
Even so, I wake up sometimes with numb lips
Icicles dripping from my doorframe
And your name melting on my stomach
I told you once I’d love you when hell freezes over
You told me ice was the great scalding of the world
I don’t think that’s true but sometimes
My tongue remembers