it’s cold enough
the sliding doors
have fogged up
as the sky over
the city ebbs with
a silvery diffusion

if i didn’t know
any better i would
think it could snow

it won’t
but a man can
dissociatively
dissapear into
the feeling of
being home
as halloween beckons
a child still clinging
to birthday wishes
as autumn falls
into hoarfrost kisses
on my snowglobe heart
the chill seizing
vitriolic ventricles
in a pristine palpatation
sending cuttlefish markings
across virgin snow

no matter how
low the temperature dropped
we didnt turn on the heat
until my birthday
now, whenever the tip
of my snoutlike nose
feels the chill
i can smell the dust
burning as the furnace
kicks on
sitting by the window
melting the ice with
my excited breath to open
a porthole into the early night
watching for my father
so i could open presents

as the windows fog
i am not a madman dying alone
too aware of all i lack
leaving me just short
of ever being enough

no

i am not here at all
just a silhouette
where dreams lose focus
an ever shifting mirage
in a pixelated malaise