The winter winds came in swift and harsh

Taking the vibrancy of our sun-filled adventure skipping rocks along the creek

A storm of hail battered us down till I had nothing left of you

Except the hollowness that has engulfed your absence  

 

Every inch of my memory of us is covered in a clean blanket of ice

Glimmers of light shine through revealing how we could still be,

But slips through the fingertips that try to grasp at your hand

 

Unexpected warmth radiated from your gleaming smile

Luminous stretched lips whose rays saturated my nose with the scent of sunshine

And eyes that twirled me in a whirlpool of clear celtic oceans

 

I’ll miss you scooping me up only to lay me on the ground for a quick chuckle

Late nights pretending to do homework just so we could talk in private

How you’d toss salsa packets and folded socks at me with no explanation,

the way a ten year old who doesn’t know how to express attraction would

 

Replaying the twenty-six hours on an amtrak, asking intimate questions of who we were

As if searching for the very start of our roots that burrowed in the muck of our pasts

Repeating the phrase ‘surveillance camera’ because it sounded smooth on your ears

And splitting headphones in a way that only love-struck teen fools do

 

Winter has now frozen every stunning teen romance movie moment

There’s no way to hold those memories close for long, without the burn of frostbite

The slush smothers Spring and forces me to let you go

 

Before taking those steps in the freshly fallen snowflakes,

I lick icicles only for the water to freeze back inside me

Accepting fate, I attempt to say goodbye with only a whisper escaping my lips

As I walk away cautiously into a blinding blizzard of ivory snow