amphibi.us

Wind shears her tears off the sides of her face, slicing cold wetness over the cheeks, stinging her eyes, rubbing the ducts raw with agitation, seemingly burning with frigid Winter, sticking strands of errant hair to her cheeks, rosy with remorse, snapping against the freezing brick wall, stoic against the impending glacial freeze of December darkness, allowing small people to scurry back and forth, searching for cover inside, but dashing out to take care of whatever it is these little people do all day before returning here, passing by this woman huddled against the bricks, freezing and coating the already slick sidewalk with tears of regret, or anger, or everything mixed together, so exposed on the outside of the building because she can’t go back in, won’t sit down on her bed, their bed, alone this time, amidst piles of things that used to be theirs, now separated into his and hers, so easily put into piles of goodbye as snow collects on the sill, she’s pressed between the cold of the weather, and the harsh chill of the lonely apartment upstairs, unwilling to go into either without kicking, screaming, the old ‘I love you, I know I told you to get out but how the fuck am I supposed to live without you, I hate you, get out, come back,’ and the stinging eyes of December, tears steaming on her cheeks, blushing them with icy finality like the sting of a sharp slap across the face she gave him that morning.

© Shannon Peil, 2009

[others]