The Cold was a short poem I wrote in front of my workstation one night. Fittingly, I wrote it in my code editor.
The poem has given me much to remember, and through remembrance it holds me to account for all my present moments. It is where this blog’s name comes from, although at the time, I didn’t really consider it beyond the poem’s literal imagery.
The poem talks about dying in the middle of any conceivable night, when the world has gone to bed, except you (me), and the city lights, the office fluorescents still wave-pulsating, are droning a tiny sound. When death comes over, there is no noise above the silence, so that all is silent, and no one hears you, or sees you, depart.
I remember that one cold night. I was surrounded by the darkness, which I preferred when I worked late. The air was air-conditioned cold against the skin of my night body — a body that loses heat in expectation of sleep. I looked to my right and saw the dead streets, wet after the rain, yellow-orange under lights. I looked down to my hand resting on the keyboard. I saw the monitor drape its light over me. Underneath the office table, lit blue by the computer’s power light, was my sleeping bag.
I have cause to remember this poem, because I always come to the moment of wanting to write it again. Reading it, I find nothing needs to be added, nothing needs needs to be trimmed. It says everything I need to feel at the moment. To read about a quiet death in a quiet room filled with computer fans humming, fills me with an alarm that sounds at the back of my heart. I can hear a humungous gong, a devil screaming in another plane. But I see no vision except the physical sparkles of particles and aura around my eyes, which streak back and forth causing me to turn: is someone there?
The devil is screaming. Or is it my voice I’m hearing?
If I go on like this, I will die much like how I describe it myself. No one will close the lights before my eyes shutter themselves from knowledge of them. I will inherit this sadness in passing — forever. This cold light is the sky of a poor life. Only in leaving this room can there be hope of better chapters.