I choke down the winter air, all itchy and scalding in my lungs, a sensation akin to being set aflame. Funny how the cold is like fire; a minute spent too long around even whispers of its sirenic touch may be enough to lose a finger. In response, I wiggle my own fingers in my ratty coat pockets to check if they remain attached to my palm, unclaimed by the hungry chill in the air. Hoping the movement would keep the heat flowing to my limbs, I shuffle through the streets blindly. My feet halt. A store, not unlike all the ones behind me, stands tall against the onslaught of wind and brainless shoppers.

My eyes pierce through the panel of glass, the only thing separating me from the pricey, puffy designer coats. The clothing is sleek and stylish, hinting at a likely tragic end to some exotic animal, a testament to the carelessness and ruthlessness of the city’s rich and powerful. And yet, almost morbidly, I wanted to reach through the glass and stroke the downy fur of this dead innocent animal. 

The fluffy, white clothing seems to blend in with the plastic skin of the mannequins, creating a monochromatic scene of sterile white. But perhaps they were simply humans, paralyzed, unable to escape from the winter’s scorn, I think to myself.

White cotton candy snow is in a sweet sense of repose on the frozen solid ground, almost jokingly juxtaposed to the warm and tantalizing clothing indoors. The white on white on white feels like what Heaven surely must look like. Achingly perfect. Or at the very least, a sense of perfection.

My nose, pressed against the glass, smudges the perfectly clear window. I ruin it so easily. I swore I could have made snow angels in the fogged up glass, an illusion I never considered myself privy to; the snow often too muddy in the secluded village I grew up in, more like slimy ice than fluffy, soft snow reserved for fairy tales.

Within this winter paradise, I stand out. Gray and brown clothes (a color they had collected after years of loving wear) are a stark contrast to white white white. Powdery white snow and powdery white faces, the only hint that any of the creatures milling about were even human was the occasional red tint bleeding out from the bite of the frosty afternoon. It is so dangerously beautiful. I had trouble believing that this could ever become a home. I was not all prim perfect, like white picket fences and clean cut white roses, stripped of its thorns in case the perfect fairness of one’s skin was to become ruined, destroyed by the rich cherry red of a pinprick of blood. It is beautiful in a way that only perfect cleanliness is beautiful. It feels cold, like the snow; not inherently unfriendly, simply void of personality. Where there is no point in looking at the landscape, because after you see one small part, you have truly seen it all. Nobody lives, unless living is considered botulinum toxin and its fake, frozen smiles. 

I never realized the stark contrast of this new life to my old one. I thought I would wear it in like stiff leather boots, since there was always at least a teaspoon of excitability in the blisters of trying on something that could collect new memories. But here, in this pristine modern environment, perfectly polished surfaces repel memories; unlike a plain rock, where life, like luscious lichen, clings. How did my life ever change from giggling and chasing other kids my age in the home of brown dirt clouds and scraggly sprouts of grass, constantly flattened by the stampede of children? Real, genuine laughter, rich and smooth like honey flowing through the comfort of the town square. A green oxidized man, equally joyous, singing out a stream of words as graceful as the supple stream of water. How did I then not go insane in the obsessively manicured nature of the city?

I ask myself all this years later, snow boots crunch crunching through the thick snow, dragging me down into its depths like quicksand, almost begging me to not go, like my mind was willing me to. Cookie-cutter houses, overly extravagant and crisp white. White blankets of snow covering what could be lush green lawns. And the smell of… cinnamon? 

Sure enough, it was coming from a shabby–but homey–robin eggshell blue house not that far away from me. I near the house, my footsteps stomp stomping and my heart thump thumping against my ribcage, screaming for the key that would set it free. I feel fear. It was deliciously licking at me, like the dangerous breadth of a flame, a spark. There is so much happening all in tandem; a muddled web of memories swept aside, under the mental rug, all plush and white like the snow under my feet. 

I will myself to focus on the beautiful way that I could make a series of shapes with my footprints, stomping out a horse that looked more like a dog, manipulating this bleak, plain atmosphere into art. It is a small moment of comfort. I prefer my footprint art over the ominous house in front of me, and how I just so unfortunately had to slow my steps to complete my masterpieces, so soon covered up by the flurries whisking by my sensitive skin. And maybe it was time for me to embrace this moment of ignorant bliss. Pretend that I did not have a very pressing meeting in the aforementioned house before me. 

It truly was impossible to miss. Next to the modern, cold, exact lines of the buildings beside it, this soft blue house felt wrong. Illegal. The distant traveler wishes it was real, a reprieve from the icy wind whipping the viewer’s cheeks. They picture warm cups of tea by the fireplace, because surely this quaint and homey of a house would have such a thing, never mind the obvious chimney standing tall on top of the head of the house like almost a hat, twelve sizes too small. This house could stand up from its cold habitat and sit itself across into the small town life I have come accustomed to, and no one would bat an eye. But these painfully white, harsh houses could never do such a thing, for they have no soul, not even the “people” living inside them. 

I lift my shaking legs, something I blame on both the subzero temperatures and the treacherous walk I put myself through and definitely not because of the way my heart had not decided if it would rather climb the journey up the mountain of my esophagus, since breaking out of the bones jutting in its way was not a successful option. I lift my knee, my foot coming with it. I set it down a few inches in front of me. I repeat the process with the second foot. 

Then I stand right by the porch, stained a light sandy brown, chipped in a few places. I attempt my best at this almost ridiculous-appearing movement (at least I assumed it would seem so to an outside viewer) on the rickety steps. They sigh under my weight, an almost happy sound, as if it were awaiting a visitor to grace its presence finally and cross into the humble abode in front of it.

I kept pushing my body in this mechanical manner, moving towards the oaken door. The blue paint was peeling in places surrounding this entry point, but it only made it feel lived in, not carelessly disregarded. Time had gently brushed its graceful fingers along its edges, and the home chipped away in its soft touches. And as seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years passed by, the house began to shape itself into a character. It was no longer in its youth, freshly built with its first coat of paint. No. It was a home. 

The door felt strangely inviting, as if the house’s soul was coaxing me in with nostalgia and the gentle creak of rocking chairs by the warm, crackling fire. And it was so incredibly convincing. I could just ignore the real reason I was here. I could just curl by the soft popping of the flames and sleep for weeks. Pretend that everything could be the same as it was all those years ago. 

But I remind myself that in order to get to said fire, one must first be allowed to brush past the resident of the house, the owner of the fire. 

I stare at the barrier in front of me. Strong, warped from the elements. A thick ring hung from its top center. A knocker. It was such a small touch and would not have seemed out-of-place maybe decades ago, but here, it felt wrong. Neighbors would consider it outdated, as it was not the high, advanced technology so many of the rich boast with custom ringtones and video cameras and fingerprint recognition and laser scans and whatever complicated garbage greedy tech corporations could propose. But of course. Of course, the small blue eggshell home in the middle of the posh, modern rich, would have a simple, brass knocker. I grabbed it in numb fingertips, rosy pink, and thumped it against the door in rhythm with the heart lodged heavy in the back of my throat. 

Initially, I thought the owner of the blue home was not, in fact, home. And I am sure the severed heart in my throat is not delivering oxygen, and I can only imagine swaths of deoxygenated blood passing through my veins, and arteries, and capillaries, in the tangled up yarn of it all, crashing like a rushing tide of crimson into places it did not belong. A secret, scared, part of me had hoped no one would answer. Prayed, even though most do not believe in God anymore. But soon, I heard the shuffling of footsteps and the excited creak of the door, finally open for an individual it had expected and recognized standing in front of it so many moons ago. 

There he was. In the doorway of the adorable baby blue house. The color so distinct, reflected in his eyes, like deep pools of warm water, like the bed of a stream on a warm summer day. I never got to tell him that. How his eyes counteracted the fiery undertones of his rich brown skin. 

I felt my heart fizzle, crackle, and pop like the heart of the fire I heard either in my head or behind the literally radiating sun. 

They say to never get too close to the sun, because it might burn you. I was dangerously on the verge of death, the sudden warmth of his eyes and heat radiating off his skin, all way too much too much too much. 

I had told myself I would never return. But the soft halo of his mussed hair and the light he seemed to generate, like the beautiful stars peeking out behind the gray of the afternoon sky, was almost a promise of what the setting of the sun would bring. But I had seen the stars before, and they were white, weak little pinpoints of light. Marvelous in the way its congregations formed pictures on the soft black canvas. And so close to him. Him. 

I could form my own constellations from the stars on his skin, bright and soft. Like as if all the time spent kissed by the fiery ball in the sky had allowed the other stars to trust him, and fall into his embrace, like I had longed to do for so long. How I yearned for this beautiful sun to burn me, lick my dripping wounds, and bring me home again. I can only remember how he felt like summer. The dew on a patch of wildflowers in the morning. Fresh and clean. I, too, drank up the sun whenever it was near me, almost became greedy. And look at me now, the winter had dragged me down into the depths of Hell in my mind, where I no longer could see the memories of a beautiful boy with soft golden skin and golden promises. 

And standing in front of him made me realize. Realize that I could not turn back and trek back through the snow like I so desperately wanted to. No crunching footfalls and freezing, wet socks again. And maybe… maybe a part of me did not want to move away from the furnace standing in front of me, defrosting the heart so heavy and pounding, its blood’s proximity streaming through my cheeks, making me flush from the heat of it, no longer the lashing threats of the cold. And there he was, so effortlessly gorgeous, making me wonder how someone so beautiful, so graceful, could ever want to look at a thing like me. Me. 

I had stared at my reflection in the mirror for far too long earlier today, only partially knowing what I was getting into. I lied to myself, saying things like “I want to go for a walk to see the scenery”, disregarding the thrumming of the energy under my skin, and the goosebumps prickling on its surface. And it is definitely not why I picked out the outfit that reminded me of him, the earthy browns and baby blue that definitely did not make me reminisce about his eyes. 

One, two, three, four, five… I counted the stars that littered his skin and the mole on his upper lip. The crinkles around his eyes. The wrinkles in his white clothes. And unlike the ground, the “people” with no soul, and houses aligned so perfectly on the street, it suited him. He was so pure, graceful, delicate, but strong, confident, assertive. He was an oxymoron. And maybe I was a moron for ever letting go. But I had gotten too close to the sun, I had told myself. Too close. I was afraid I would burn and have my flesh mutilated by the touch of the flames, irreparable and permanent. The proteins in my body would denature, and I would be left melted, unable to function. And here I was, standing on the doorstep of the one person who could hurt me the most. But in my thrumming heart, I knew he wouldn’t. And I told myself that the possibility was the reason I should never come too close again.

I looked up at the cloudless sky, attempting to not look at the blues and browns, the colors, of the world I had managed to ignore for so long. Maybe it was time for me to change. Maybe I had to stop looking over my shoulder and meet the fear I had longed to conquer. And I did not want to be afraid. I was like one of those pitiful wildflowers, where my cell membrane had shrunk, tore itself from the cell wall in an irreparable feat of plasmolysis. I have lost too much water. And I have lost the feel of the sunlight. Maybe it is too late for me, after all. But I at least want to see why I have become so broken over these gruesome past 10,547,126 minutes, and feel the way the sun smiles at me one last time.

His smile always broke me. And the sad one, where only one side of his lips slightly quirk up, just does exactly that.

“Hey.” That was the first word he spoke to me in twenty years. So simple. So small. Yet the weight behind it nearly made me crumple to the floor like a pile of wet clothes. The pools of his eyes whirled, eyes buzzing with the electricity of thought, pondering what I could possibly want from him. I don’t know.

My heart was weighing down my tongue, and I nearly choked on it, trying to find something to say that would make up for everything I had lost. Because what do you say to recover the only angel you ever saw in the place they foolishly called Heaven?