Soft rain,
a passing haze of touch,
graces the skin of my forehead
and rounded cheeks
like the film of a plastic curtain.
Everything is clouded
in sheets of slate-gray–
the sky, the concrete beneath my Adidas sneakers,
even the birds with their muddied feathers,
wrapped tightly around their little bodies,
hop across asphalt streets,
bright blue faded.
The cold is bone-deep,
the misleading kind that made me think
I’d be fine if I left the house in just a sweater and jeans,
’til it leeched the warm flesh of my body,
made my chest go clammy.
I keep walking along the tall, metal fence,
teeth quivering slightly in my jaw,
cars whistling by the sides of glass buildings.
A song plays in my headphones
from the iPhone shoved in the back of my jean pocket,
a Noah Kahan song,
one of the few that I know by heart,
something about driving with an empty engine,
about moving as slowly as the seasons.
Each step I take along the sidewalk feels like a mile.
I keep walking.
