Where The Iron Frost Melts

The subway was too hot. Sweat stung my eyes, the air a thick soup of stale coffee and regret.

I needed cold. I walked into the tunnel between 42nd and Times Square, where the pavement turned to ice at midnight, and found her standing in the center.

She wore armor that tasted like frozen rain. Her eyes were two deep wells of starlight; she did not blink as my breath fogged before me.

The heat rose from my chest, a frantic drumming against ribs of steel. She stepped forward, and with one gloved hand, the scorching summer air shattered into shards of blue glass. It was her touch that broke the spell of the city—her silence more intimate than any lover's embrace.

"Warmth," she whispered, a sound like cracking glaciers, "is merely an invitation to be thawed."

I stepped closer, letting the frost burn my skin, and for the first time in years, I didn't feel alone.

Editor: The Nameless Poet