turn up the eagles, the neighbours are listening

biting breezes makes gripping a pen particularly vulnerable, feeling fingers falter and creak like knuckles might shatter; what was once a carefree dance of well oiled joints jotting ink in the fall now a slow, brittle machine groaning to a stop. the act of writing this winter, i’m finding, comes from my stomach; hunched and tensed to keep from shivering, gooseflesh dotting up and down the arms of a girl in the smoking area. the writing then too is bitter, cold, and waiting, i wonder what there is to wait for but next winter - when the outside world demands to be let in again, and it is but my primal instinct to obey it.

in the company of friends july is made warmer; my friends light fires, plan potlucks, lean just that bit closer to gossip in your ear. i find myself venturing out into cold nights seeking the comfort of fast friends and slow soulmates, and as the winters grow crueler each year as does my determination to bask stomach up. the cold makes us equal in our need to be held, and don’t you want to be held? your vulnerability every winter within shivering hands and rosy cheeks, hot breath in night air, piercing right through sultry summertime facades and autumnal mirages of indifference. we are friends who hold hands, drink mulled wine, crawl into bed - at least in the winter, and it’s not until the mornings (2pm) when you might realise that where you’ve landed is far from ones own bed; composed of a walk, then a train, another train, maybe another walk, god forbid a bus…but perhaps it is not the commute that is painful, for i found myself stepping out of your door and into a winter sun, breezes blowing still on my bare face and temples beating to the rhythm of my footsteps. away from towering skyscrapers making up a horizon, i felt tall and bold and warm. sometimes, when you’ve had just the right amount of beers (7) and miscellaneous shots from beautiful strangers the night prior, you achieve this incredible slowness; as though the world is yawning, or rolling over, or stretching out its limbs like a cat, and i was moving through its orange and green haze to get back home, the kiss i left on your forehead still on my lips.

i had at first set out to write about a failure of writing; a cowards approach, for any writer could tell you that writing is about never getting close enough to what you mean or want or need it to be. this is of course fine, for if you are a writer you have plenty of lined paper to try again and again, reshuffling the most menial of words until they flow - or float, or swim to shore on their own without you. but maybe my winters aren’t about writing at all, and as i realise this i can feel from within my fingertips that winter is already melting into spring, but i melt into you.