Past Cold

I am so cold
I know that even skin has a freezing point
My own keeps getting harder and harder.
My eyelashes have long since been torn off by the wind
And the hairs on my arms and belly and legs
are perpendicular to their surfaces.
This is no metaphor
for the way I felt
after being left or ravaged or poor,
and disheveled
This is me
in the arctic circle
not caring.
I've no preference to the state of your well-being,
his, hers
only my own.
Only curling up, inside the blubber of a bear or a seal, if I must
to live a little longer
and collect the energy to muse over
all the kids who compare freezing
to being alone.