Ellena Dee
COLD THERAPY
At 4.am, an icepack at the base of my skull
Takes the edge off another clusterfuck of headaches
Until a blizzard of static lights up the TV screen –
The constant crunch of white noise
Like footfall in the snow.
Every night, I make my way across a frozen expanse,
The ground slowly fracturing under my feet,
Sensing shapes approaching through the snowdrift –
The silhouette of something heaving its bulk
Across the tundra, like a cryptid,
Past trees hidden under white sheets like ghosts.
There is always risk of falling through black ice
To find yourself treading water in the void
Out here, in this sleepless twilight zone.
A fox blinks, silver-eyed, under streetlights,
Its burning tail vanishing into the dark
Out here, on this dead-end street
That may as well be at the end of the world.