Everything Fun is Forbidden

Don’t get any big ideas
They’re not gonna happen

You paint yourself white
And fill up with noise
But there’ll be something missing

Now that you’ve found it, it’s gone
Now that you feel it, you don’t
You’ve gone off the rails

So don’t get any big ideas
They’re not gonna happen

You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

   ~Nude, Radiohead

I’m out in it tonight.
Alone in the cold.
Remembering memories from a winter past.
Something in that reminds me of you.
Something I read.
I left to call you and I want to.
But fear won’t let me.
Because I’ve grown attached.
And I like it.
So I think of your painted arms embracing me.
My head against your shoulder.
All eyes cast upwards to glimpse the stars.
Renaming constellations after one another.
And I think of how empty mine are
without you near me.

A gust kicks against my back, forcing my step.
A reminder to get moving.
Back to my real.
This cold is deep.
It burns.
There is a sting in its slap against my cheeks.
It’s waking the roses. Asking them to bite.
I would love for you to see them.

I rest weight against my red SUV,
pausing to feel the tiny snowflakes that have just arrived.
They are perpetually dancing, swirling around and down.
And only to die.

Snow angels, baby.

We could be.