the shortest day, the longest night

I woke to find myself alone, so twisted with cold that my teeth had chattered through the edges of my tongue. The blankets had been pulled off me and pushed out of my reach. A fairly clear message in winter. I sat up and curled into them until the shivering stopped enough for me to pick up my glasses. “Happy New Year.” Outside the building, I spat my mouthful of blood onto Georgia St and walked home barefoot, my shoes in my hand. My coat was too thin, a morse code of warmth that travelled over my body in response to the wind. No one spoke to me. Two nights without proper sleep and the sky looked like a renaissance painting as the soles of my feet silently burned across the cold pavement of the viaduct. From where I was walking, too tired to think or care very much, I could watch as, one by one, swinging slowly, the construction cranes turned off their christmas lights and began to smoothly arc across future decades of glass tower living. I uselessly wished only for breakfast, knowing there would be none, and didn’t stop moving until I was home.