Snow

in the town where I grew up, the first time it snows incites peculiar things to occur. it’s hard to describe. my town, which normally boasts a kind and warm nature, becomes cold. I don’t mean just temperature. I mean of the Spirit. Until I moved away, I didn’t know that a blanket of snow gives a quaint town sense of peace, like a baby swaddled in warm white sheets. Instead our town feels as if it’s trapped within some white walled prison. not just because of the snow which constricts us in this claustrophobic embrace like some overbearing grandmother crone. it’s the whispers. If you walked down the streets of my town in the dead of night, you would hear strange utterances hidden in the folds of white powder, or from between the trunks of trees who’ve been stripped of all their leaves. Sometimes they say nothing in particular, but sometimes those same things both true and frightening. and I haven’t even mentioned the urges. I don’t know if they affect everyone, but I know deep down they probably do. the urge to go out into the snow and wander become so strong that it feels uncontrollable. that’s why I time myself down with restraints. nothing extremely complicated. just enough to stop myself from wandering in the woods while I sleep. Following a chorus of dead voices in the middle of the night.