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you wake up in the snow. and you look around. you process. you learn. filler words and freeze frames. leaf trails and doe tracks. your fingernails are dirty, your fingertips are frozen, and through the cedar canopy you see the sun shining like a cruel spectator.take the cold, the sun says, savor it.but you can't feel it. not really. maybe it's just nerve damage.it's easy, though, to walk barefoot through the turbulence and the snow. your tracks are soft; your dress flutters in the winter wind. it feels sweet, somehow, feels like maple syrup and frostbite, so you keep walking.you don't know how long you've been here. you don't know where you are or when you started. but you walk.sometimes, in the distance—you see something that looks tall, like a tree, but not a tree. you see something that looks like a man, all human-skinned and sallow-fleshed, but not a man.you see antlers reaching to the branches above, like a deer, but not a deer.the Deer Man, you've taken to calling him. he watches you, sometimes, and you watch him back, through your icicle-lined eyelashes. you can't see his mouth, and his eyes don't look like they have pupils, but maybe his eyes are blue.you see him from distances, and you keep your arms tucked into your sides, and you keep walking through your winter wonderland. there's not much to see. the forest is quiet. maybe it shouldn't be. but it is.when night falls the stars don't look familiar, so you make new constellations. when day rises the sun stays in the same spot, as though it just blinked into existence, as though it just appeared to an audience of you and only you.sometimes you think you hear birdsong, but birdsong doesn't belong here. nothing belongs here. sometimes you hear cicadas and crickets and dancing and lovemaking, but none of that belongs here.only snow lives here. and you.sometimes you look down just to see if your footprints have changed. you look down to see if the snow has risen or if the trees have rid themselves of more sick branches.you keep the thrum of gravity locked in your chest. you keep walking. you walk forever. it feels like it.( gravity points downward.
—what is down?
to the earth's core.
—where's that?
to the sun's center.
—what's that?
to the shadow that follows you.
—who's that?
)
being held down is a new type of freedom, you think. you're alone here, of course. you breathe in the ice cold and you hover through winter fragrance. you don't feel the cold, not really, not enough. the edges of your sundress are soaked with snow, and your skin is drained of flush. but you’re free.sometimes, you think in concepts. sometimes, in a summer sundress and looking like a ghost, you drift. see the weather doesn't make sense, and you don't know if you're alive you just know it was summer when you fell asleep and now it's not and you’re alone. The Deer Man guides you, sometimes.He tilts his weary head to the side, and he smiles crookedly at the shortness of your dress, at the thinness of your breath. ( is it really breathing, do you think? )He says that you’re probably not supposed to be here.Something in you says to agree. But his voice is a ragging, rasping thing, cold to the ear when he breathes too close.He claims you’re not from here. But you can’t remember anything else. And his smile is some deviant derivative of salvation, and he says he’ll keep you safe.And his hands are warm. Stunningly warm.Around your shoulders, he gives you heat. In the depth of your ribcage, he gives you solace. In the recess inside you, he bestows warmth, and he locks it up inside you to keep.His antlers reach ever so high to the sky, and his fingernails keep catching in the too-thin fabric of your sundress. There’s holes in it, there has to be, from walking through branches and brambles and icicles and sap-taps.( sometimes you seethe sap from the treesbleeding so red and so serratedgives you a new meaning to sacredhe becomes your new sacrament. ) The Deer Man reinstates your damaged nerves.He holds you down to your own body, you think. Stitches your spirit and soul to physical cold.He keeps your parts held together with his otherworldly, nonsensical warmth, the feel of deer fur caught in your fragile-creaking teeth and your hair tugged up to stand on its ends in all directions.He reinstates whatever body you thought you didn't have.Pins you up to trees, to heat, to ice rain and sleet, he's skilled at this, you think, and you think he's had experience with this.His horns are sharper than you thought, even with their downy fuzz and the press of bone beneath layers of keratin. The Deer Man, he holds you down, he—He is your gravity.Certainly, this is it. He's your Sun's center, your Earth's core. He's all the matter in the concentrated expanse of your limited universe. He's this and this and this, he's that and that and that, he holds you to your bones so that you don’t break any longer and he holds you to all the frozen saliva in your all-too-dry mouth, he—He makes you into what you are, truly.His hands are still warm. Every other stretch of your skin feels the irredeemable, isolating cold. He doesn't leave you alone. He keeps you warm.Without him, you'll freeze. Hypothermia onsets in minutes.Snow fills up your lungs and avalanche dreams take ahold of your brain, and you're a deadened corpse on frostbitten feet.But he keeps you warm. He's your sacrament. You learn. Of course you learn. The Deer Man keeps his own collection of acorns in the woods.You sit in his lap, head against his warm chest, his hand drumming snowflake shapes into your thigh, drifting just underneath your skirt.He says these belong to the squirrels. These belong to the birds.
These belong to the stars, and these belong to the clouds.
You tell him you don't see the clouds and he smiles, drawn out and soft.Says you don't need to see the clouds.And you say that's alright. in the isolation of your winter weathervane weary warzone, you learn some things about yourself, and about your earthling history.you find dried fallen leaves in the recesses of the snow. you feel the cold now, yes you do, but the breadth of leafen wings is quite beautiful, even if riddled with caterpillar bites and brown decay.you find frozen wooly bears when you look hard enough. the frozen peaks of their fur, hardened by winter's unruly chill, antifreeze in their veins to reinvigorate them in the future, curled up and unmoving in the white expanse. tiger-striped, they are, slumbering like children.and you hope moth-winged adults can make it in the spring.you’re not sure you’ll be around to see them, yourself. in the empty space you see Him. you always see HimHis reaching height, the crooked smirk-smile. you see the shaky tread on feet of snow. you see the blood vessels pop and burst and freeze. you feel warmth like a snowstorm supernovaHe gave you a gift. the Deer Man blessed you, you think; at least, you hope He did. even if your eyes are blinded from sun on snow, even if everything about you shakes from inattention and wrong-dimension, maybe in a different chirality He made you feel cold, but herethere is only suffocating warmth. there's only the wretched crawl of snowflake spiders up your dress, and the weary solace His smile hands to you. there's only His hands, clawed and furred, and there's only the teeth you see scattered in the depths of the forest. there's only you, and Him, and flesh, and skin, and He keeps you warmyou suppose you're grateful for His gifteven as He pulls away from you, with one final searing kiss to your chapped lips, He scalds your waist with fire-worn fingertipsyou don't belong here, He tells youHe circulates His heat through your vessels, even as He guides you backwards, further and further into the trees of dark and creedyour tired feet drudge along the slush and snow. you're so tired. you don't know how long you've been herebut He takes your chin in hand, and He smilesHe says you're not of the winter. not a child of zero temperaturesand He takes your shoulders and pushes you down to the ground When your eyes open you are still in your summer sundress. Your shoes are gone, and your naked feet are clammy and cold, covered in soft-warm dirt. The sun shines from the deciduous forest roof into your skin, warm, the color of humanity, and you take a breath of stinging air and listen to the cicadas sing.The grass is green and viciously vibrant under your hair, and you feel the creep-crawl of caterpillars when you pull yourself to your shaking knees.Trees full of green, butterflies and wildflowers in full bloom. A warmth emblazoned into your skin, your sundress muddied and stained brown.You don't belong here, you don't think. The cicadas ring and agree, and a moth lands on your shivering cheek. You curl your fingers into the soft dirt ground, and you decide to fall back down.
xx end.