Cocooned within my duvet while the morning night refuses to dispel, I slide further in as the frost bites my ears. I’m between that sub-conscious state of space and place where only dreamy figures glide and slide. They try to breach my precious shell, ghosts of a former life scratching their fingers like icicles against my heart. I clamp my knees together and drag them to my chest. My womb is secure, I say. All safe inside. But they keep on scratching.
My eyes squeeze shut until they become fully open. There she is, lying on the cold side of the bed. A blonde wavy mass is swept back by a wicked smile. She bites her lip. A white fang leaves a trail of ruby red delight and my lungs hang for an eternity. She curls her finger and beckons me to her. It is all I want, all I have ever wanted, and she is here and she is now.
Yet as I rip away my shield I pause. The strands of her sandy mane are a trifle too yellow. Those radiant cheeks that beg to be smothered in kisses shine like the wax of a mannequin. The single nail that commands me to her is filed to a sharp point. One slip and it would draw blood. So I stay cocooned, safe yet sorry.
Her sapphire soul suddenly breaks its window and her fingers ball into a fist. All the warmth of promised love flows to the floor leaving a creature of unforgiving frost. The temperature plummets and I hug my knees to my chin, begging for the heat of sweet-salty sweat to return and not this torrid pool of slush. The banshee erupts and I cover my ears as the howl of a winter’s storm pierces me with a thousand shards. Blonde locks fade to black, glassy blue to hoarfrost white, rosy now redundant. She rises into the air and I scream as her icy breath blasts my face.
Only one escape now.
My frozen fingers threaten to snap as I drag the duvet up. The torment becomes muffled as I reach my inner sanctum. All is dark here. No light of the past can invade. No longer can I hear the living or the dead trapped within my self-made tomb. No one can impose my fortress of solitude tucked safe within the tundra of existence. Yet hard as I try I cannot smile for I know that if the tears would dare to flow they would forever fall as icy drops upon my breast.
