The Ice Age Is Over

I feel.

Can I call it pride?

Can I call it defiance?

At one point that was enough.

At one point that was hope

for the glacier in my skull gone numb.

But the Ice Age is over,

and now there are floods.

My heart is pumping again,

and now there is blood.

Blood on my brain

from one hundred forty three

nearly perfect cuts.

Blood in my lungs

every time I heave

in and out

until they are overstuffed.

I feel the heat of freshly thawed wounds,

slices of all the things I said I wouldn’t do

now warm with life

and draining and swirling inside.

I feel the pressure of that viscous pool

as it seeps into all the wrong places,

what I wouldn’t do again

to undo all the holes I’ve made

and unfeel in icy stasis.