Melting

Running across the ice

I used to want to be impervious, cold, ruthless. I used to describe myself as resilient and I would no longer do so. Today I am at the halfway mark of my thirties, and it’s almost the end of the year, and it no longer feels like to be cold is the answer, to pull away from what needs to be held close, and I keep returning to the poem Color, by Tina Chang:

Up ahead it’s white. Snow animal,
I’m running at your back. I’ve failed to tell you
I’ve been hungry all this time, to tell you
I’ve been searching for you, like meat,
like water. All my life, I’ve distanced
myself. As if to know you was to drown.
As if to find you I’d usher myself further
from what is real. I’ve been adrift along
the threads of white leading me out
beyond an imagined frame. I’ve untied myself,
uncuffed the arms and neck. I didn’t know
I was hurt like that. I didn’t know
there was a force pulling me downward
toward a bedrock, lulling me to sleep.
You are the one escaping, you are the one
breaking free. I understand your astonishing
dash to freedom, done with the estranged wind,
done with frost and storm, orchids curling
outward beyond grief. The road widens
to glory. The road disappears.