River Frost

I wanted to write about this difficult time of the year, which I feel keeps coming back, every time with a slightly different theme.

November drags me to bed

I have the river’s frost in the veins

I feel blood burning

ice expanding

into the pipes

into the capillaries

Abyssal sounds

and inaudible words

underground of arctic days

Behind swollen eyelids

Surface’s memories flicker,

underwater figures,

each piercing its needle

deeper, into the heart.

A heart I know is mine, but I cannot be fully convinced:

How can an organ that is already sustaining life for such a heavy body bear the clench of ineptitude to the passing of seasons

too?

It gets more easily whipped and tossed by the air’s currents than the water’s tides,

that shelter, shield, enclose. And yet, it endures, this heart, until the pain becomes too

tough. And then, it requests a retreat to the waters, however cold.

Perception without feeling,

acceptance without participation

Not to burden its labour, I stay still. Not to dissipate energy with useless motion. Cold

numbs each of my limbs until I lose them, entrusting them to indifference, not to take care

of them anymore. Sheer, diaphanous skin to disguise myself with the reflections of the pale

winter sun, and not to disturb the creatures of the current. Minuscule air bubbles, soft as

snowflakes, unveil a faint breath, still present, the bare essential.

Stillness without change,

loss without sacrifices

If I could, if they let me choose, I would sit here forever, with the strokes of the mass of

water all around. Without interfering, without fearing.

It is not me who carries my body to shore

the instinct and reflex of relief

Everything compresses

inside and all around in the end.

About the Writer: I’m an Italian non-binary person collecting way too many degrees in Psychology to avoid the real world. Having kept a diary as a child -a safe space for feelings and thoughts to leave a trace- I eventually found my way back to writing after finishing high school, rediscovering the cathartic role it has in my life. I love exploring human and inhuman minds, including my own, and finding a way to let them speak through words or through anything creative I can get my hands on.