I get the feeling you're bored with me, she thinks. Instead of making the words audible. Cold and drifting into his hair. His ears. Like the incessant snow storm that just doesn't seem to want to quit the space they both currently inhabit. Tonight, she vows, there will only be the silence of winter. The slow sounds of the frozen pricks that would have been a rain storm during summer, when things were different. When midnight was a tired sleepy rephrase of skin and angles. The pressing hands and flesh fighting eyes and the breath of sleep until the buzz of the glowing morning call. She realizes, instead, that they are both well enough asleep, already. Outside, the air soaks her in stillness. The sparkling disparate night. Looming now, always, just outside the window. Standing still to crush bits of snow under the toe tips of her boots. To create a violence in the dark. To disturb. Disrupt. Make any sound. Of consequence. Instead of going inside, she reaches down with her bare hands. Instead of screaming at the nothingness. Fills her mouth in a fistful of ice and snow. Inside, her naked body pink with the handprints of absolute cold, she waits for the bath to fill. She wonders if life could ever change. Or if she'll always be, just here, tired and useless. Doubtful and longing