Black Winter
Prose Poem
I stood outside for a smoke, my outstretched hand was swallowed up by the black abyss of night. The subzero air gnawed it’s teeth on my ears and cheekbones. The frigid cut of winter howled through the trees and rattled the stop signs.
Beneath the surface of my skull, my mind wondered on about hell and what temperature the devil keeps his thermostat.
I imagined a barren frozen sea of ice that cracks with every step. Each day you swim through the artic searching for an opening to claw your way across the wasteland. At water’s edge, soaked, alone, and shivering, you march through a violent blizzard with winds that julienne trees like onions, bleeds the ears, and chatters your teeth past the gums. The hollow cold carves the skin like a blade, the veins glow purple until the individual slowly turns into a lifeless shell. The more I drew inside of my brain, the scarier it seemed, the colder I felt.
Was Dante right about the Inferno? Is it as hot as we believe? Or is it so cold that we beg for the fire….
