Cold

The cold clambering frost tried, as much as it could, to move into her blanket but it was no use. Her heart, still beating, managing to survive most of life’s harsh words, kept on pumping the way that it wished to move. Each beat, powerful, defiant, no longer willing to withstand the bitter and cruel world outside.

She’d withstood, endured all the damned idiotic pain within her world. Empowering, lasting, embracing her pain and often suffering emotions. She held the blanket closer to her body, feeling the warmth and grace of its tender inflections. This was her safe zone, her place, her mood for the moment that ensured her safety. Words, above all, often knew a way of working their way through any and all defences.

She’d heard all of them. Many of them. The put downs, the reasons, the fault to which she often unknowingly took the blame. She was this, maybe that, as her mind and emotions simply agreed to make the words stop. No matter the bruises, the verbal or physical, she knew that the images and respirations would endure. She carried on. She always would.

Sipping the small cup of hot chocolate, closing her eyes as the warmth entered her body, she reflected upon her life, her world, her emotions and more. This place, this moment, was one of those seldom found explanatory, exploratory, escapes and sanctuaries. She smiled, as her eyes opened to the world in front of the window. The icescape world, the beauty of white, the purity and refresh of the land, calmed her. Although she didn’t adore the cold, she surely embraced a scene such as this.

Her self-confidence, ever so slightly shattered, with the various words and deeds becoming her norm. Reprogrammed, re-purposed, to ensure another’s emotional vacancy remain intact, she’d learned to finally say, ‘no’. She’d pushed away the moments of pain, to deny his pleasure inflicted upon her with harsh abundance. He was skilled, acquainted with the verse of words that escaped his mind, with his heart probably being left alone from a young and tender age. The spoilt spoiled person, wreaking havoc upon another.

Each time she’d tried, she was set to fail with his type of support behind her. She felt her own self-doubt infect, reaping away her energy to succeed within her life, unable to find that simple little belief that she needed. She’d watch others thrive or, even, smile as they did the simplest life tasks with ease. The self-doubt turned inwards, focused her thoughts into the cold, chastising melodramatic drama of angst and tears. She was, to her own eyes, worthless.

The cold followed her, calming her inner demons, until the day she finally started to listen. Each word, analysed. Each circumstance, reflected upon, until she finally and dramatically said one simple word, ‘no’. Other words were eventually raised from within her inner monologue, ‘no way’ and, ‘no chance’. She started to rise. Slowly, surely, each step upon the icy ground moving her forward.

Upon a cold day, a shallow day, void of emotional connections or sympathy, she finally said what she’d wanted to say for the longest of times. She calmly explained, exclaimed, that she was no longer willing to endure the pestilence of another’s failing emotional mind. She proclaimed that emotions were gentle, sympathetic, tender and kind. She stated that feelings were precious and that they were to be cared for, held, and embraced with the most tender kisses imaginable.

She, this person wrapped within the warmest blanket, had finally escaped the emotive ups and downs, with one brave, final, emotionally vacant explanation. She stood. She left. She moved forward but would never, ever, forget the cold she’d endured year after year. She, again, smiled, knowing, realising, that she’d finally and bravely, found her own cold safe exterior that would protect her precious, burning, healing heart.

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