How Do I Feel About Cold Weather? (a love letter in frost and fire)

I
do not fear the cold,
but sometimes it asks me questions
I cannot answer in words.

Last night,
the frost climbed the glass like a whispered secret,
etching silvery veins of longing
across the windowpane.
I watched it spread,
its elegance
so much like the silence you wear
when you don't know how to say
you missed me.

How do you feel about cold weather?

Do you curl into it,
like a cat seeking warmth in the folds of solitude?
Or do you walk into it headlong—
bare hands, bare heart,
waiting for something unnamed
to bite you and wake you up?

I remember your voice the way I remember
the taste of burnt sugar—
bittersweet,
golden,
melting through the cracks of what should've held.
You once told me that snow
reminds you of your mother—
the way she was distant,
but always covering everything in her quiet way.
You smiled
when you said that.
I wept inside my glove.

I feel the cold
mostly on my knuckles,
those places where skin thins with time,
with reaching.
You feel it behind your knees,
where no scarf can reach—
vulnerable like a half-formed thought
in the middle of a lover’s quarrel.

They say lovers in winter
either burn brighter
or walk away before the thaw.

Do you remember the café in Shimla?
The tiny one where the chai tasted like fire
and your nose turned pink?
You leaned close
and steam curled around your face
like it knew you better than I did.
I touched your fingers—
not to warm them,
but to see if you'd flinch.
You didn’t.

There are things the cold teaches us
that warm weather never will.

Like how long we’re willing to wait for the kettle to boil.
Like how your silence means more
when your breath fogs the air between us
and still
I lean in.

I asked you once—
"Would you kiss me if I were trembling from the cold?"
You answered—
"Only if you were trembling for me."

That night,
the wind pushed through the cracks in the window
like it knew our names.
We lay in woolen silence,
layers of blanket and tension.
Your foot found mine under the quilt,
and for a second,
I believed in the kind of love
that books don't ruin with endings.

You said you love winter
because everything slows down.
I love you
because you never did.

How do you feel about cold weather?

Does it remind you of old lovers,
the ones who left
with scarves that weren’t theirs?
Do you keep their postcards
next to the radiator,
just in case the ink wants to bleed
from missing you?

When you wrap yourself in that maroon shawl
(the one that smells like cedar and longing),
do you think of the poem
I never finished writing for you?

Because it began with:
"In the hush between your eyelashes and the snow,
I found a stillness that resembled prayer."
And it ended with your name,
half-said,
half-sighed,
like breath caught in fog.

I think of you
when I see smoke trails
rising from chimneys.
They climb skyward like unspoken apologies—
ones we were too proud to give.
I think of you
when I see mittens left behind on park benches,
or strangers sharing thermoses.
You always hated when people drank straight from the lid.
You said it felt too vulnerable,
too trusting.

I want to ask you—
What coats your bones in December?
Do you still sleep with your feet outside the blanket,
pretending not to need protection?

I still carry
your laugh in my coat pocket.
It’s lint-covered now,
and quieter.
But it’s there
when the wind gets mean.

And your sigh—
it lives in the folds of my scarves,
woven like a hidden truth.

Do you dream in cold colors—
deep blue, frost white, pine green?
Do your dreams still tremble
when you hear my name?

I confess:
I still write your name on fogged-up mirrors.
I still reach for you
in the sweater aisle.
I still think your absence
tastes like peppermint and regret.

This winter,
like all winters,
comes with questions I dare not answer.

Will you wear your old boots with the broken lace?
Will you let someone else warm your hands in theirs?
Will you forget
how my breath always found your collarbone
before any scarf could?

And I—
I will keep asking,

How do you feel about cold weather?

Because buried in that question
is another one I am too afraid to voice—

Do you still feel me
when the air turns quiet
and your body folds inward
like a love letter never posted?