Cold Enough To Drown

Cold enough to drown..

For hours I battled sleep that would not stay,

The night fought back in its own cruel way.

I shook with cold, soaked through to bone,

Curled in tight, yet heat unknown.

I wrapped and circled, trapped inside,

No warmth arrived, nowhere to hide.

My hips screamed out in grinding pain,

Every breath is a heavy strain.

To stretch felt like my bones might snap,

As if my body had lost its map.

By five a.m. I’d had my fill,

Of freezing dark, and aching still.

I lay in water, skin drenched bare,

As if the rain had found me there.

The cold clung fast to every seam,

No boundary left between me and the dream.

At last I rose, each movement slow,

Layer on layer, moving through woe.

On nights like this, no sleep feels kind,

The mind seeks rest, but pain confines.

This isn’t rare, it comes again and again,

A looping script of night-time pain.

I wake and try to hope, to mend,

To think this suffering has an end.

But what’s the point, my tired soul cries,

When this is how survival lies?

No name, no help, no hand in sight,

Just an endless, unseen, freezing fight.