Where she was is cold.
Ice, with purpose, everywhere.
To teach through absence. 
“The Professor”

She’s taught untold millions
Filling their heads with her siren song,
Leading them off a cliff,
Their corpses filling the chasm.
Corpses even of those I have loved,
And from them her malicious melody
Seeps into my mind.
But i will not follow blindly. 

“Sugar”

I remember that… sickness, shock I think they call it, borne into my stomach by the announcement made by my teacher, “She’s gone.” The cold fingers of dread creeped from the soft lining of my guts and into my throat, cutting off my oxygen. Those malicious tendrils slowly wormed their way into my mouth, bringing with them the acidic taste of bile which seeped into my teeth. 
“Dread”

I don’t want to sleep again.
I don't want to see her again.
I don't want to wake up in tears again.

I want to never wake up again.
I want to see her again.
I want to breathe again.

I don't want to carry this weight.
I want to believe in forgiveness.
“Where that place used to be”

As I lay these flowers down, I remember the warmth that once touched this earth, now commemorated with cold, hard granite. The orchids splashed the greywashed landscape with a vibrant gradient of pink to purple. Every now and again a green peaked through the petals, each time a slightly different shade of deep forest.
The granite gave it a pleasant backdrop of jet flecked with reflective silver. A fresh layer of soft, powdery snow blanketed the scene to provide the bouquet a comfortable bed of white and hush the constant assonance of traffic. Time passed slower through the harmonious hum of silence and grief, its paces leisurely and coordinated.
With a content sigh, i turned to match the methodical temporal stride of the graveyard and let the scene become a distant dot behind me, the color lost long before the stone.
“Fireworks”

Bursts of color illuminated his path. The boy walked slowly, listening to the tread of sneaker on asphalt. Families enjoying the festivities loomed out of the dark on either side of his course, their laughter providing a soundtrack only broken by intermittent detonations amongst the stars. Occasionally, a twinkling brilliance would erupt and be brandished about in the dusk by an awestruck child, tracing names and enacting epic battles.
Eventually the noise faded, the delighted bustle replaced with a silence that weighed on the importance of the technicolor explosions cracking apart the heavens. His path lead him to the river, where nobody noticed the addition of his own firework to the display.
“Frozen”

Blue. that’s what he could remember; everything was lightly tinted blue as if the entire scene were coated in a bitter-steel frost. Maybe that was just the horror and disbelief dancing amidst the turmoil running rampant in his stomach, maybe not.
Blue. Blue soon faded to black. A voice stirred him from the mists of unconsciousness, pulling him back into the light. Red and Blue lights.
The voice came again, “Sir, are you alright?”
He sat up in a daze, glancing back to the chilling scene before losing his dinner next to the lap of the concerned cop. Words stumbled from the man’s mouth as clumsily as he stumbled to his feet, “No. I am not. I no longer have a son.”
“Name”

I am eternal,
I am from nothing,
I come for all.

I am vehement,
I am from pestilence,
I come for the hairless girl lying in the hospital bed.

I am ice,
I am from despair,
I come for the man living in the bottom of the bottle.

I am silent,
I am from accident,
I come for the wife lying in coma.

I am flame,
I am from pipes,
I come for the old man who cannot smell.

I am Death,
I am from everything,
I come for all.
“Shopping”

“9:50, almost closing,” I think to myself. Just as fate would have it, a young man walked in right at that moment.
The boy did not stop or waiver, he walked with purpose and came back to my register with a single bundle of rope.
“Pretty interesting cart,” I remarked with half a nervous chuckle.
The boy’s reply came distractedly as he pulled his hood up and over his head, “Yeah.”
The strange kid paid respectfully and left, but I wish I’d said something, anything, because the next day I saw him again in the obituary.
“Holding Hands”

It was smooth and warm. Her hands were those of a hard worker’s, yet she’d always taken meticulous care of them. She struggled finding a comfortable way to walk alongside me with her hand in mine, eventually resigning herself with an indignant huff to link arms with me.
The memory faded into the cold dark of this winter night. I sat alone on the couch trying desperately to massage warmth back into my numb hands, the bitter steel wrapped around my finger biting deeper and deeper with each passing second. 
“Dress Up”

A chill bore unto me through the air that morning, a feral dog tearing goosebumps into my bare flesh. It was dispersed, however, when I slipped into my slacks and drew the thin, crinkly shirt up my arms, over my shoulders. I tucked everything where it needed to be before cinching my pants tight with a similarly black belt. Slowly and methodically I worked a knot into my tie and buttoned a vest over it. Then came the blazer and the tie bar, everything drenched in varying hues of black, grey, and silver. Finally I took my ring from its resting place on the nightstand and slid it over my finger, its blue inside the only hint of color amidst my loss. 
“The Vessel”

It dangles about my neck,
This necklace of hope.
It descends from the high heavens,
Giving me a red carpet walk from despair.
The path would be so easy to tread,
Lined with silken scarlet.
Yet there lies a bauble
That I cannot take with me.
It illuminates the black muck
Clinging to my ankles
Showing me the hard road.
I step along it carefully,
Fighting the mud,
And ignoring the silk.
“Alarm Clock”

The cold biting deep into her marrow woke her. As consciousness returned, so too did the pain. From the sharp stab with each breath, she assumed her ribs were cracked at the very least. She allowed her gaze to travel down the length of her arm, lingering on the dark blue and purple spots, to her hands.
At the sight of her mangled fingers they erupted in agony, her mind finally realizing why they wouldn’t respond. Her muscles soon joined her hands in remembrance of why, as did her brain. Tears began to fall soon after, their initial impact on her bared breast uncomfortably, painfully hot, though their wake was just as painfully cold.
She was alone in this alley, broken and unable to save herself from the onsetting freeze.
“The Sound of Silence”

The pain races up and down my arms, sharp and deadly. Its intensity draws a tear to my eye and a knot to my throat, but I cannot cry out. They would hear. They would come. They would stop me. So I bite my tongue and slide from the water into oblivion.
“Heat”

I have dug this hole,
Now they’re fed up
And filling it in behind me.

The sand traps my legs,
Charring my pants,
Singeing my legs.

It caresses my chest
And squeezes it tight.
It’s getting hard to breathe.

I have dug my holse,
Now they’re fed up
And filling it in behind me.

The sand wraps around my throat,
Turning air to fire,
Choking my lungs.

It pours down my throat,
Grainy and hot,
Yet silky and cool.

I have dug my grave,
Now they’re fed up
And filling it in behind me.