St. Lawrence River

Here I miss winter mornings, suddenly lost without chill snow on the air and breath hard in my chest, the tight feeling of dry air. Missing scarves and mornings when it's too cold to get out of bed, but we do anyways, wondering why we live in such a place, and the brightest morning sun blinds our eyes as the first gasp of frozen air hits our lungs, wind whipping our coloured scarves around our shocked bodies, and we jolt into motion to stay warm.

The grey of the city, rushing past downturned eyes, faces without faces, covered in colour. I miss those days when my legs would be cold to the touch for hours afterwards. The city, her tall buildings, guiding lights at night, the cross, the searchlights, the neon of St. Laurent and streetlights through the plateau as I wound my long walks home from work. The beauty of that first snow, the redundancy of countless others. My boots covered in salt, feet shedding gravel up the stairs.

And nights that are so crisp that the snow squeaks beneath frozen feet, but we go out anyways, underdressed, breaking into the dark places, seeking heat from others and alcohol, and we peel off our outside bodies, returning once again to normal in the most abnormal of places. And coaxing our frozen limbs into dance, we cavort through the flashing lights until it is time to go. We return to reality, our frozen city, stopping for pizza among strangers and eating it with gloved fingers, the taste of cheese and the feeling of lint in our mouths. But we eat it anyways, before it too freezes.