the cruellest months are october and february. there is no respite, no rest, false hope. the season breeds fear and advertises happy endings, drains your pockets and the coral speckle from your cheeks, paints them scarlet.

all through the winter is that white-knuckle fear fear fear and it's simply lived through because you're blinded by shopping mall string lights, traffic poles wrapped in tinsel. metal wrapped in plastic planted in concrete shocked by the sudden change in temperature, cracking along quickly, following the most walked paths of the city, fast and dirty like rats. the snow comes to bury tenants, still, you owe us money. go on, wave it around up through the dunes, we will come collect, the soles of our boots 12-18 inches of snow above your head.

everything runs just a bit slower, blood from your nose, drip, drip. gears in the factories grind – they are trying to keep up the same pace they did in the summer. in the summer when wooden doors were swollen shut but sweat rolled from foreheads to oil the joints of everything. now, metal groans, the same sounds as growing pains in your knees. the doors shrink tight again, and in a quarrel, you throw one shut. it slams, but not in that satisfying way, thud. no, it slams in a high-pitched pale blue swingaround, the kind that you regret right after you do it. i have let my good person slide, to slip down with the sludge of half-melted ice, grey and drudging east towards the sea.

you can hear the neighbors quarreling just the same, below you, with your ear flat to the floor. it seems your floorboards and cheekbone are trying to meet each other through the skin. the discomfort is welcome, you are too tired to change anything, move anything, besides, the rest of your body is finally warm. you have yet to take your coat off. when you breathe deep enough, you can hear the material of it shifting. the only organic thing in the room is you – the building itself is stiff with grief. you sink and sink until you hear a key turn in the door, a shuffle in the hall and rustle of plastic bags being handled, then set down on the counter. your eyes remain closed until they do not.

the cruellest months are october and february.