The Hidden Truth Behind Cold Feet

I am cold in the feet. Double socks but still chilled. I sit by the only friend I trust from the inside—the window. Outside it is the kind of cloudy right before the most gentle rainstorm. There is more Autumn in the air than the harsh Fall in my lungs. There is more beauty anticipated than forgotten by sunshine. There is more me than there is not.

I am the sleepiest kind of wired, anxious but silent. I am static in a room devoid of movement aside from the pendulum on the clock. Is that what it’s called? Either way, the thing is ticking.

My feet are kicking. Fidgeting. The same cold feet. I half mutter the words I type. My right ear and throat ache. Reopening new wounds with old ways of destruction.

I have been yelling at myself in silence for all of my life and somehow all of the scolding has only resulted in more moments of fidgety cold feet dangling off chairs with every toe screaming I am still so very sad and every leg of the chair squeaking back with oh, but being frozen without feeling isn’t all that bad.

It’s rainy and the raindrops are nice to me. I see them smile with a sadness we have always bonded over. I return the smile with eyes that reflect each of us back at each other — all of us only seeing our own reflection.

The rain, it’s comforting. It’s the arrival of the beauty. It’s the weather I know well and a feeling I know even better; it’s a truth I love true and a loyalty I love even better. My cold feet thaw at the arrival of the very first teardrop of the clouds. My frozen toes tell the legs of the chair, I can’t remember what lonely feels like anymore! and every leg of the chair squeaks back with eyes rolled, you said this last time, always forgetting the sun will come back like before.

I look to my feet and remind them that in the midst of each rain, loneliness is who gets cold feet.

So, I take my socks off. One layer, then the next. I mean, why keep them on when my feet are sweating?