I said “it hurts”
She said
“oh my love, do you know what I do?”
I shook my head
She said
“I pour ice on the wounds
and then I whisper to them
“when hell freezes over.”
And it does
freeze over.
It seemed extreme
but even doctors say
“Apply ice”
so I took her advice .
Now I walk around with a little piece of hell in me
and on top is some ice
and no, it’s not very nice
But at least
it doesn’t hurt anymore,
and if anything
it just feels
Numb
I’ve seen pictures, movies of landscapes covered in snow. I’ve never actually seen snow, up close, in person, but it seems peaceful.
I like the way the snow covers everything when it’s thick, like a layer of silence, peace.
Dead branches
Old car bodies
Rubbish
Header photo: icebergs pool at Bondi. It’s been a dream of mine to swim there for a long time and last year we were there for a few days so I swam every morning and can tell you it is aptly named. So bracing, so cold, and when I stepped out I was alive all the way to my core.
Content of poem? An imaginary narrative on accepting what can’t quite be forgiven for now, because it allows us to carry it in a way that doesn’t hurt us (or anyone else). Yes, waking in the morning should be a clean slate but instead it is usually looking at a small bundle of emotions and thoughts and deciding how to unburden as much as possible, and then accepting there will simply be things that need to be carried a little further before they can be dropped, naturally and of their own accord and letting yourself off the hook for that too, because after all, we are humans, not robots 💖
