winter is severe

i am not

It will be a severe winter. Not because that one weatherman with the ghastly veneers or the farmer’s almanac predicted so— something in my eastern bloc bones sensed the chill before they could. Even after thirty something years of microwaveable American comfort have done a proper job of fattening them up, a girl remembers. It will be a severe winter simply because winter is meant to be severe. But I am not.

The clock reads four as the last bit of January’s daylight crumbles on my lap. I’ve left the windows open for too long again, the apartment’s gone glacial. My landlord will take issue with this month’s heating bill, I know, but that’s no concern of mine. If he could see how the curtains swell like clouds in the wind, he’d agree that yes, winter is severe, but we should leave the windows open sometimes. So that we are not.

I step outside and the wet hair I gave up drying begins to freeze. My wool scarf claws at my neck, designer boots are covered in last night’s snowfall and my once-perfect cuticles are dry. Winter and I, we find ourselves in a sixteen week-long staring contest. Go ahead, I tease. I’ve come to enjoy shining my boots each morning, it’s rather meditative really. I feel my lower lip, the one that does all the pouting, go numb and my almond eyes water but I am too stubborn to blink. You may be as severe as you want, but I won’t be.

On the train platform a man from Mexico City excitedly trades stories with an older woman from Flatbush. His mother— having only known New York by way of Hollywood— was overcome with emotion upon seeing her only son in front of the Chrysler Building, enjoying a half eaten hot dog. His dream, he says, is to make enough money one day to share a New York hot dog with her, in front of the Chrysler Building she loves. The train doors open and I can’t tell if I’m crying or winter finally made me blink.

I spill most of my Diet Coke in the theater, right all over the wool scarf that almost killed me. The room is mostly empty, no one is around to mind. The lights go out and Nicole Kidman comes on the screen, assuring us heartbreak feels good in a place like this — she’s right, it does— and I sense tears before the movie even starts. The theater is mostly empty, no one is around to mind.

I lose my leather gloves and think lovely weather for hanging oneself, indeed when the hypothermia starts to set in. There are barren tree branches and I’ve a wool scarf soaked in soda— diet, no less— that would do the trick. But this hanging oneself in the dead of winter business sounds like a hassle, quite severe.

I’ve already decided I am not.