All I Know

If you could make it hurt,

I can handle that. 

Yell, tell

Bemoan my elective ignorance,

My intentional obtusity

Say I could find my mind

Detect, perfect what’s placed before me

Surmise and surpass if I would 

Not give up before I try. 

If you could not be nice,

That would help. 

The ice of nice is 

Deceiving, retrieving the heat

Buried in the cold

Is a worthy excavation but

Pricks your thumbs

And makes you come

Up with a million reasons

Long after the cold victorious 

To keep digging. 

To keep rigging the ropes

Around your throat

Help for the fall

Still hoping the ground

Never meets you. 

Did I ever meet you?

Did I imagine you?

Mold you from my flesh

From the icicles where my

Ribs were,

Condensed clouds 

For breath. 

I wanted. I waited. 

I loved. 

I love. 

So I cut. 

My heart the pick axe 

My brain the swing. 

Letting me out. 

Letting you in. 

The ridges crusted 

With years of unsalted 

Unsullied 

Un-shoveled 

Detritus of the survivor 

Of frostbite. 

Tips and toes still black

Where the tissues surrendered 

But the soul stoked the furnace

Of continue. 

Tell me, yell me. 

I love you. 

Stay alive under my snow. 

I here. 

For now. 

All I know.