She has returned. A screaming vengeful

Madness that has grown in her absence, she

Brings it now with a terrible hunger that

Consumes our darkened streets, erasing

Lines with no regard to the cars that crawl

Between them beneath the fury of her

Tormented heart, flinging sheets of strange

White blood from the gaping wounds of

Her self-inflicted wrath, crying out her

Pain in whooping hisses and haunted

Whispers given only to hidden corners.

By morning her anger will increase. Trucks

Throwing salt into those wounds doing little

To drive her back, she will laugh at them from

Her white-padded winter cell of alien landscapes

Carved from porcelain to resemble a world I thought

I knew just a few hours before, a mass hysteria giving

True credence the extent of which has caught us all

In the grips of her piercing influence, a live thing

That spreads itself across our minds while she

Dances her way from house to house, a random

Insanity called Winter whose patience has finally gave out.

I sit inside and wait. A huddled creature of newfound

Insignificance under her watchful contempt-filled

Indifference of a temporary ghost town, ethereal shades

Of white obscurity where streetlights swing like hanged

Men, faces turning red and back to green for a lynching

Nobody will see, spectral swirling whirlwinds of blowing

Snow the only thing that moves here now, her ragged

Breathing a constant reminder of the power she holds

Clutched to that cold December heart, a heart that beats

With a longing I know not how to describe, only

That she seeks it out with a raging persistence.

END

“Second Coming, A Madness Dressed In White."