Work Text:
Hail, o ice idiot, scourge of my sanity,
Clumsy hag of calamity and frost.
Were clumsiness an art, you’d be its high priestess—
The number of times you’ve knocked me over, I should count not.
I’ve seen earthquakes cause less collateral damage
Than your attempt at a ballroom waltz without me.
Your tongue, sharper than any blade I wield,
Strikes truer than my best incantation.
And yet, every word you throw my way
Carves another mark I’ll never erase.
Still, for all your venom, you freeze the world only halfway—
Leaving just enough warmth for fire fools to linger.
The only woman I cannot think of as cute —
Not for lack of rhyme or reason,
But because “cute” is far too feeble to use
For whatever manner of being you are.
If that creature can be called a woman,
Then humanity has evolved beyond recognition.
Hopelessly irritating and infuriating,
Though perhaps curious would be the better way to put it.
For you are proof that reason melts before absurdity.
I’ve never once thought you sweet, lovely, or endearing.
The sun does not think kindly of the moon, no, not one bit—
It merely cannot help but rise to meet her audacity.
So stay where you stand, you impossible woman,
And let me circle you endlessly out of annoyance.
For if I ever called you “friend,” it would be a lie—
Gods forbid I degrade the word love by giving it name.
You’re simply the air that burns when I breathe wrong.
The one person who makes duty feel personal.
If poetry could thaw you, I’d never have thus written.
But you never melt — and I never learn.
So my hand may you keep freezing,
And your hair shall I keep burning.
But you won’t freeze me solid,
And I won’t burn you to ash.