january crumples like a spinal cord in my hands

january sun does not bleach the insides of my gums how i want it to. blushing alabaster and the first peony buds are one and the same: harsher in the light, splintered on leaves un-crystallizing between evanescence and bruised jade. and so i bathe in fluorescence like a microwave, watch the heat rising and stare at the colors it forms in my palm. [heart line and head line are backward stitched into oblivion; there is a point where you must choose which asymptote to reach for. but how can you decide after knowing the possibility of two infinities is ink-swirled in your identity?] fuschia glares in neon, and it demands my laughter before staining my gums of rose petals and rubbing alcohol. i hand it over. [rain-soaked laughter weighs heavier on my tongue, anyways.]

permafrosted mornings slice my heart open with a carnal kind of anesthesia: isolating my senses one by one until the equation can be solved. jawbone-sharp vision softens into honey-blood between my teeth. magnifying the sound of nothing until it becomes the snow in my veins. the quaking of roots and mud not quite metallic in my nostrils. [synesthesia in spring oscillates at 20 Hz: january cracks its shell open like a rotten pistachio, tired mauve and beetle-wing moss and stale skin.] the thunderstorm has quieted. the rainbow flickers on the inside of my fingers: mulberry jam and prussian blue.

january sun is weaker than i think it is. gaia dilutes the sky with too many tears because she is squeezing the life out of her knuckles to the soil. she wrings the washcloth like my mother and does not see the drops that spatter off the edge of the sink. [spring awakens with a clouded mind and forgets to brush the grime from her eyelids. she reaches to wake the plants, but stops. the plants will thaw in time.]

the plants will thaw in time.