I put you in the blizzard;
first thing last night,
plastic brimming your edges
and a fluidity to your speech:

“Let me freeze here,
let me just eat away
at my own heart
and pause the passing on time
on my mind;

Please let me forget,
let me weep my frosted tears,
because being lukewarm
is getting numbing
(and the prospect of heat melts me—
unpleasantly).

I plead
I plead
I plead.”

I take you out too early,
and your insides are hollow.
(They are not hollow.
It is simply that you do not care
for your contents
that you see them as such.)

I run hot water
under you,
turning your upside down
twisting your world
like a winding snake
or river of magma
meandering away from its origin.

With my fingers
(which are now red with heat)
I coerce you.
“Come out, come out.”

You are not ready
and with a flaking breath
you tell me so:

“Please stop.”

You come out.
Shattered.
Your hollow insides
spill in the sink.
You do not scream.
You cannot.

My fingers are warm.
They’re heated
too heated
and when I hold your thin exterior
you crumble away in trickling freshwater.

Strangely, you are still cold.
(You cling to what you want
even if you didn’t get it fully.)

I lay you
on a page.
A canvas.

“I’m whittling away,
creator,
God,
please save me.”

I lay pigment across your frozen nerves.

“God, please stop.”

With a brush, I drip paint on your face.

“Please stop.”

You are art.

And then you melt.

“Please.”