Gift Wrapped

The air pressing in on my skin

Smells of exhaust fumes and day old matches.

Blinding headlights flickers past,

Illuminating the splotchy fog above and beside me.

The halogen signs sputter.

I expel my own exhaustion in a slow sigh,

Lifting these troubles sewn to my shoe-soles --

My feet are heavy. 

These skid marks and soot stains have become

Inescapable;

I ache for the frost to freeze this filth

I am living amongst

And to replace it with a blank slate of frigidity.

To leave behind me not a trail of blackened

Trudge marks,

But instead a set of pristine, white prints.

To hold your hand with smoothed, rounded nails,

Instead of these chipped, filth encrusted aberrations

Residing along the peripheries of my palms.

Perhaps when the snow melts the illusion will not dissipate,

Perhaps the world will be cleaner and more manageable.

Perhaps I can start again,

If this winter will simply give me her blessing.