Such is the Winter

I long for winter.  It exposes the stark reality of what hides behind and beneath layers of frivolous pretensions.  Naked and bare, there’s no point in even trying to evade the cold, the all-seeing eyes that thrive quietly in the wilderness.  Stripped, devoid of ornament and decoration, the superficial coverings have fallen away under the overwhelming pressure of frequent, icy embraces.  Skeletons, reaching towards the heavens and branching out into crooked, ugly shapes.  Withered fingers.  Without their billowy, flattering garments, the trees look emaciated and sickly, more fit for firewood than attractive landmarks.  The snow, if it can be called a comfort, is a suffocating presence despite the thinness of the air.  Breathing can be painful, like swallowing the sparks from a firecracker, or silver pins.  And don’t expose your skin, lest you desire the sensation of a tattoo needle embedding invisible ink into sick flesh long since pale.  The sun has gone into hiding, and when it does show, the light is bleak, frail, and might as well have stayed behind the grey slate of the hard clouds for all the heat it imparts to the chilled.  The stillness of the day is only rivaled by the catacomb silence of the night, where even the tiniest trill shatters the eardrum and cracks the tempered iron surface of the dead air, and is swallowed whole by the greedy hush, leaving one to wonder if there was ever a sound at all.  Such is the winter, such are the days where life stops living in order to hide itself from the horrors of existence in a final attempt to salvage itself, to repair itself quietly, hidden from the eyes of the world.