The Falling Sun

A poem about when I was out skiing for the first time.

Like a reindeer on clear ice

The wind captured me

As I rushed down the hill

Fear and adrenaline chasing me.

I fell once

I fell twice

I must've fallen a hundred times

Or at least fifty.

People must've thought I loved kissing the snow

The way I was rolling around on its skin

They didn't see the frozen tears

Burning my cheeks

For I hid them well.

Guarded them like a shepherd

Until each one of them were locked up 

Captured, controlled

And slaughtered.

And so the sun fell

Like it had fallen a billion times.

Or at least a thousand.

But it only fell once today.

I stumbled my way back to the cabin

Like a sheep running from the shepherd

Free and rigid

Like a babe in the woods.

The snow crackled beneath my boots

I kicked the steps like they had wronged me

To get some of the snow off.

I forgot how stubborn snow could be

It took me a while or two

I must've looked like a horse

Kicking to remove dung from its hooves

For even horses don't like having dirty shoes.

I looked like a painting

When my clothes were removed

Revealing the bruises on my legs and kneecaps

Like Picasso himself had beaten my body

I was a painting ready to heal. 

I put on something warm

And poured a glass of wine

Yellow like a child's urine

But a taste of bitter heaven.

A smell of burning logs

And women's perfume 

Entered my nostrils.

I watched the sun fall

Like it had fallen a billion times before

Or at least a thousand.

Then darkness came

And people hid away

In their cabins engulfed in snow

And the world seemed empty

The snow laid as cotton on a field

Ready to be picked.

We sneaked out

Like runaways

And blazed like the criminals we were

And boy, did it feel good to be a criminal.

As the ice on my lips embraced the joint

Spewing smoke like a coal factory

And the smoke licked my brain

My gut worried about getting caught

By an angry, lonesome wanderer

But my mind thought only a single, quiet thought

How good it felt to be happy.