She extends a silk gloved hand, stark against her pale skin,
That longs for the embrace of hand-holding,
And I take it, our contact so light that it reminds me
Of the soft sweetness of marshmallows and woolen hugs.

The white sea beneath me glitters in the light of the muted sun
Shrouded behind cumulus clouds expelling little crystals
That descend upon the world as a dense flock of doves
Smothering the flora completely and silencing their souls.

She leans close, each exhale creating cotton puffs in the air.
She pulls me in close with grave intent, the whites of her eyes
Carving paper cuts into my heart, igniting the white-hot flames of fear
As her light pearly words crumble like paper maché once they reach my brain.

A fog fills my head, buffering my attempts to process,
A white noise erasing any thoughts that I had before.
Blinding milky tears drip thickly down my cheeks, gluing my mouth shut
From all of the desperate, colorful nostalgia that wants to escape.

The torn scraps of unwanted love letters whip around me
Reforming into a stream of blank origami cranes that dissipate over the horizon.
Her clean smile tainted by her ugly final words, she turns to go,
Leaving me crumpled under the blizzard's many layers of tissue paper.

Almost out of view and into hazy memory, I clamber to my feet and trudge forward.
I trip and fall into the snow, reaching for one last grasp of her white thread.
White flecks caught in my eyelashes, doves in a birdcage,
Tell me why, in the midst of this white expanse, does my heart feel so dark?