Lying on the bed is an empty vessel that squirms and stretches: I reach for warm windows, waning light, windswept words. Perhaps these will squeeze me; perhaps seas are empty vessels that squirm and stretch, too. I yearn to feel the scrape of winter weather through stretched skin and scarred hiking boots, to feel the surge of the sea whose vessel is not as empty as mine, whose vessel is teeming with tiny life and terrifying depth. Perhaps these, these seas, will open me up, not like the slow bloom of a flower but rather the flinging open of a door by frantic, frostbitten storms; opening me to sensations of soft smells and sorry sights. I do not feel frantic, frostbitten, soft, or sorry. I find the winter white pills with fumbling fingers and no eyelids, swallowing these seas to push them down and putting on a fleece though I do not feel frantic, frostbitten. Thinning thighs do not thirst, hunger—and I wonder, a feeling!, if these seas are mine. Do I contain teams of emotions, terrifying depth? I pull flaking bits of myself away from my body, remembering when they were useful, remembering when I was not an empty vessel reaching for fleeting fears, solemn smiles, anything to fill me up.
