Drifts

July can’t thaw the snow on her soul
the drifts in icy words that froze her heart,
she can’t escape the memories
of the cruel, sadistic snowman who held her hostage
when she was still in her spring
a fragile rose waiting bloom,
but he was filled with frostbitten sayings
always blowing his blizzard over her garden
until it died and nothing would grow.

There is no summer for her life
to melt this harsh bitter air she breathes
utterly keeping her hibernating
in a mind of perpetual chill.

Tonight she slips into a freezer
the only place he can’t reach her any longer
just leaving the thermostat on her thoughts
adjusted to the cold death of January hopes.

Perhaps there is a landscape
somewhere beyond her nightmares,
beyond the icicles clinging to her insides
for they leave her numb
unable to feel or care,
it is only future she can imagine
with days spent swallowing tears
shaped like ice cubes.