I think to myself that it's deliciously cold

I think to myself that it's deliciously cold.

It's cold now that winter finally came.

No one seriously thought that it would.

It was short sleeves all through December, and then into January. The grass was green and I wore no jacket to smoke on the porch at night.

Then, finally, in February it became winter.

Now, that it's mid-February, everyone says the winter has been sooo long, they just can't wait for it to be over.

That's not how I feel.

I feel deliciously cold.

I feel surrounded in a womb of warmth, and outside is the deadly cold nothing. And in that way I'm unborn again. And nothing in my life was real, but is yet unhappened again.

My body burns it's fuel, the winter chemistry changes some things about me. Fats and water are diverted to the surface. The epidermal layer becomes thick. My brain senses the danger, my mind knows there is none for my social-economic class, and my imagination feeds me new fun. That I am a member of the lost Franklin expedition. Explorer in the arctic.

It's cold outside. It's cold inside too. Inside where I can see my breath, where we don't run the heat in the old mansion, because of the cost of gas, and the bad insulation and rattling windows, and drafty vaulted ceilings. Where the house mate girl and I can see our breath as we cook our dinners. And the halogen kitchen light won't come on because the halogen gas is too cold inside the bulb to conduct light, so we open the refrigerator for light. It's not like it will get any colder in here.

Outside, I wear long underwear under my clothes. I wear sport boxers and socks, and pants and a shirt and an over-shirt kinda thing, and a hoody. I wear a coat on top, and a stretchy face thing and a hat.

I can see my breath outside too.

On the sidewalks I walk along with people who I don't know, also walking in my direction and the other direction. Sometimes I walk with a friend from work, or with some friend that I know. We talk and walk. Other people talk and walk too. Talking to their friends, talking on phones. As they walk, as I walk and the other people, we pass people bundles on the sidewalks. The bundles lay against the walls on the cold pavement. The bundles are made of anything that you can find. Any material. Bundled together so there's no end and no beginning, or top or bottom.

The bundles are silent. They don't move or breathe or talk. They lay, and we walk past them.