There was a time when the world, as I came to
understand it, held its breath. I took
those years and bloomed into you.
Like a pale rider, a searching cold reached
through the city and drew away any powers
of spinning old into new. Every flake of snow
seemed to whisper You will never be still.
I was scared to death that if I stopped moving,
I’d lose myself in a gulf of dishonourable suffering.
I knew you were unworthy of the pain I was feeling.
Outside, children bound through the snowdrifts
like astronauts landing on the moon —
neon suits and boots too big.
Early morning plows still cleared my path
to the bus stop, and my dog still needed her insulin —
the apocalypse only internal.
In the final act, the world began to thaw;
I did not vanish before it.
Micah Favel is a writer and poet based in Toronto. Her creative work explores themes of temporality, queerness, and her mixed Plains Cree and settler Scottish ancestry. Her writing has appeared in The Ex-Puritan, QT Literary Magazine, PulpMag, and other venues. Her academic work on embodied pedagogy is forthcoming in Harvard Educational Review.
