Have you ever shut off

for years,

then had a reckoning where all that was forgotten 

erupts

to the surface?

Have you ever shut off,

only to be set off

by a few words, maybe offhanded, 

but cracking the ice on which you walked? and you fall, fall, fall,

into the cold, into the deep?

I hadn’t known these depths still existed. I’d gone so cold that the lake froze over. I forgot I walked on ice. I forgot a little bit of warmth would be peril. I forgot I could melt. 

Remember: you can go cold for a time, but the Sun returns. 

There’s no such thing 

as an endless winter. 

Be prepared for those waters, 

that ice will melt.