Something made shadows of snowflakes erupt on the windows,
Painting opaque glass with slow strokes
Until the thaw.
Something froze the words
Before they could melt from my pen,
Encasing them mid-thought freezing
At my fingertips,
Reducing me down to
Some old motor drowning
In Montreal winter, to
Staggered sputters,
False starts, just
Stagnant flutters of a cold heart.
Something sapped the summer warmth and
Drained the electricity,
Bled the vein and artery,
Diverted the tributaries,
Starved me out and defeated me,
Froze me nearly to death,
In the home that we winter proofed.
That something was not you.
Someone lit a fire, fought back the cold,
Thawed the windows.
I could see again.
Someone loved me from the moment she saw me
At the Atwater Market,
She had spring in her step,
Summer in her eyes,
Autumn on her dress.
Someone found me
Entombed,
Frozen and buried,
somewhere inside myself.
Someone breathed warm breath on my heart
And carried it beating in her pocket,
Someone gave me words to melt
Onto the page at that little café,
On Monkland,
Sparked the starter and
Revved my engine,
Consuming me like fuel all over again,
At once making me, nurturing me,
And turning me into gasoline,
Mining, exhausting, and burning me away,
Until we were both through and spent.
She and I would fly,
Way up high,
With that bright golden bastard in the sky.
If only that someone was you.
WRITTEN BY DANIEL KAUFMAN
ART BY CHRISTINE TAM
