A Winter Song

She had never known this Cold, this Cold that froze the creases of her skin and the words in her head and the gnawed bits of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in her stomach. She began to cry, but the tears became icicles on her face.

“No, Darling, you cannot cry,” her Mother said. “Your eyes will freeze open.”

That frightened her, and she stopped crying and held her face in her frozen hands. Her Mother was not here now, but her voice was like sunshine in her mind, trying to thaw snow that wouldn’t melt. It was easier to be so far from her before the Winter had come; everything was wonderfully possible when the sky was blue. Now she wasn’t sure if she could stay in a place so gray and frozen.

“It’s snowing,” said the Boy beside her, because their desks faced the window.

She brought her fingers from her eyes, saw the whiteness that fell around their lonely, little classroom, white like a vision seen before fainting.

“Oh,” he said. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m so cold.”

“But it’s not cold inside.”

“I’m from a Warm Place.”

The class was Poetry 101, held in the highest room of the College’s tallest building. The College was made of many stone buildings that glittered in the Winter, buildings treasuring important things that adults wanted her to fill her mind with, like beliefs and poems. There were many poems about Cold and Darkness and Eternity and Eye Color. The Boy’s eyes were blue like a doomed cliché.

“Your fingers,” he said.

She looked down and saw that her fingertips were covered with fragments of ice: her frozen tears. They clung in stubborn patterns on her skin, she couldn’t shake them off. Outside, the snowflakes fell from the sky like millions of damned angels, nightmarish. What was there to do except to be cold and hope each day that the sun would come, and when it didn’t come, to hope for the next day and the next and the next. Her icicled fingers hurt her. The Boy brought her hands into his and held them under their desks, their own secret. His hands were not much warmer than hers, but he knew this weather. The ice became water between their fingertips.

I’ll hold your hands

On snowy days,

Forever melt

Your ice away.

***

Every day in Poetry 101, her fingers melted in his. Her pen became wet with cold water, and she wrote poems about Homesickness and Tears that were no longer hers—for she did not cry after that first day.

“Tell me about where you’re from,” said the Boy. “The Warm Place.”

She told him about the warm sun and the blue skies, the cardinals and the wrens that sang to her in childhood, the broad, green leaves that canopied her town, and the eternal Summer that made everything alive. She told him how beautiful this place was, and there was never a Winter to kill the living things.

“But look at the snow,” the Boy said. There was a tree limb that stretched across the classroom window, bending with a thick layer of glittering white and icicles that hung like a wealthy woman’s earrings. “Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”

Beauty was the blossoming trees that created pink and yellow tunnels over the roads, or the warm, summer showers that sometimes ended in double rainbows. Beauty was the feeling of a warm glow deep in her chest, but now she only felt ice.

“It’s just so cold,” she said and wrote another sad poem.

After class, she went out into the frozen world and ducked her head against the wind blowing her face chapped and felt something dead inside her. The Dining Hall was serving tomato soup and fresh bread, but even the hot soup felt cold sliding down her throat. The Boy found her in the corner by the fireplace, trying to warm herself.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“Oh.” She hadn’t noticed. Her spoon lay idle in her bowl; the metal was too painful to touch.

“Don’t you carry pieces of the Warm Place inside you?” he asked.

“I can’t feel them in the Cold,” she said. “They’re numb, like frostbite.”

She thought of her Father and could remember the hot coffee on his breath, her Mother and nights pressed together under a blanket. She could remember these pieces of the Warm Place, but they did nothing to thaw her. They were faraway rays of sunlight.

She felt the Boy’s arms slide around her, felt the pounding of a summer shower in his heart, and his chest was like a memory against her forehead, of something lovely that she had lost but could now glimpse again. The tomato soup thawed in her stomach and steamed pleasantly through her gut and lungs. Without Winter, hugs would be sweaty and uncomfortable, and soup would rot in the sun.

Dear homesick girl

Here in my arms,

The snow’s a friend;

It means no harm.

***

It had been weeks since she had seen earth, and the snow showed no sign of melting anytime soon. But high above the world in Poetry 101, she forgot the frozen earth below and stared out the window at the gray sheet of clouds and told herself that the blue sky was still surely up there.

Today, she wrote a poem about the color Blue. She wrote about the hidden sky and the waters that were frozen over and blue eyes that contained flecks of snow-melting sunlight.

She found sunlight in other places. It gleamed off the snow and danced in her belly. And though the days were cold and dim, it was the hidden sun that cast gray light over the world.

Outside, the snow was fresh and powdery, and the Boy’s feet crunched along beside hers. The wind was showing mercy for a few hours; perhaps it had grown tired of blowing. She laughed and fell on her back in the snow and waved her arms until she had made an angel. When she stood, her hair was wet, and she shivered.

“I want to hear the poem that you wrote,” said the Boy. “Will you read it to me?”

She fished in her pocket for the folded piece of notebook paper and smoothed it out on her leg. Snow drops made the ink run. She opened her mouth, but when she tried to read, her lips were frozen, they wouldn’t form letters. Her mouth was gently turning blue. Shyly, she stuffed the paper back into her pocket, and when she looked up, the Boy’s breath was forming drops of condensation on her face. She stood there feeling his breath thaw her lips, and then he brushed her wet hair from her cheek and kissed her. A grin spread across her face, and his lips were cracked and cold against hers.

In my iced lungs,

The wind grows wild,

But I taste sun

Against your smile.

***

In her dorm room, the night came. There was no moon tonight, and only by the sickly lights from the parking lot could she see the inches of snow beaten up against her window. It was deep into February, and she knew that in the Warm Place, her Dog was curled up in a mound of blankets, having a silly dream that made her bark in her sleep. A tear ran down her cheek without freezing.

The Boy climbed into her bed and pulled a mound of blankets over her. Though the room was warm, his hands were cold as they wiped the tears from her face. His arms slipped around her, and she closed her eyes and sank into a dream where trees blossomed white over the roads and icicles contained double rainbows.

On moonless nights

With you I’ll lie;

Your pillow thaws

My frozen mind.

***

When she awoke, the Boy was gone. There was a strange light coming through her window, and she crept from her bed and peered out the blinds. Beyond the stone buildings, beyond the leafless trees, she saw Blue—sky!—and her gaze trailed farther up. The sun had melted the gray sheet and was beaming brightly, happy to see the earth once more. A giddy laugh escaped her throat, and she threw on her clothes and her boots and hurried to class, her backpack swaying across her shoulders. The snow was melting into slush under her feet, and she stopped to dance in the puddles. Spring—surely it was coming! She would write poems about the Flowers and the Sunshine and tell the Boy that she would neither cry nor freeze again, because maybe Winter had been something beautiful.

The Boy was not in Poetry 101. Attendance was taken: all were present.

“But wait,” she said, “the Boy.”

“Today we’re writing poems about Happiness,” said the Professor. “Be inspired by this beautiful day.”

She began tracing her pen in curly letters on her paper. She wanted to write a poem about Playful Flowers sprouting up in the snow. But when she had finished, she had written a poem about something lost that she dearly missed.

She heard birdsong somewhere outside, and she turned her attention to the window. Two wrens were perched on the ledge below, and they flew off into the morning light. She gazed at the sky, and she recognized that shade of Blue—had the sky really always been that deep, loving color?—and recognized the flecks of selfless sunlight. She was warm now, and he was gone.

Dear melted boy,

I wish I knew

That all along

You were cold, too.