Warmth

The following is Prose Poetry, written for a SLAM prompt: URBAN LEGENDS

Warmth

Cold dark. It hits like the slap of winter against your cheek. Damp breath of ice, worse in the city. There the eyes of strangers pierce with frosted eyes. You freeze from the inside out.

The Wormers are the worst. Their clammy-centered eye reminds me of a frozen bag of peas. It’s not just the color -- that slime-puke hue; it’s the shine to it. It infiltrates, slinking down beneath skin.

So on Algebran no one looks into passing faces. The cold becomes a buffer. It isolates like the wind, sending ice-cube necks, turtle-shell deep within cocooning jackets.

Yet, sometimes, the pull occurs. You cannot fight it. You must give in. So, it came to me. I looked up and in. A stranger’s eyes. She reeled me.

Her teeth glowed like spirit-moons. My mouth gave up my last resistance. I returned her smile and followed her. She led me deep into the Algebranian caverns. There, the mists danced a cricket's leap, and I joined in.

I was single once, and flaunting proud. I roamed where’er I wished. But then one day, she came along and hooked me for her own.

Now deep in the heart of Algebran, I work as a husband works. I tote and carry the loads I must, for my wife has borne me twins.

Cold dark bites on the city streets, but heat is found in a nest of legs and arms. In the deep warmth of the misty caverns in the heart of Algebran.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~