The snow’s melting all too early. I can’t say I’m not thankful for the sun, but something about a bit of cloud cover always feels a little warmer. I’m a fan of feeling constricted; winter has left us shrouded in longing and I like to tug it close like a quilt. You’ve faded further into the distance and maybe I got lost along the way, blurred by the blizzards too early in the year—I’ve melted in with the puddles in pot holes as it inevitably warms mid-December. I’ve always been told to be concrete when I write, but I think I’ve just been cautious. It’s always a funny feeling when the things that bind the cement together, that hold it firm, get caught in a winter-salted boot, stained anti-slip. I keep falling, anyway, fuck the salt, catching myself on knuckles and wrists. Road-rash blues—I’m in love, spitting blood on the sidewalk. I can’t speak. I cracked my jaw on the asphalt and my heart’s caught in my throat—she’s a feisty amphibian. Frog’s legs never made well for city streets, especially this time of year, but I think she’s warmed in my trachea enough to croak to the sound of your voice. I could crack my spine stepping brick by brick to spend the season indoors with you instead. Maybe it’d be easier to write in my margins that way—although I’m not sure if you mark in red or black. Perhaps you’re a bigger fan of blue. Suitable for the season and we’ve forecasted blue skies today, anyway. Coastal, the wind’s heavy as usual and by now I’m sure you’ve spotted a few themes in my work. You, and although I’m three storeys up and blessing shatterproof glass windows, I could claim the same sense of inadequacy flat on the pavement as I do in this room with a view.
Katrina Pridgeon is a female bi/pansexual writer and editor based out of Saint John, originally born and raised in Revelstoke, British Columbia. She has been writing poetry since 2012 and worked under both Anne Compton and Robert Moore. During her undergraduate degree, she had published in, participated in, and was Assistant Editor for Vox: UNBSJ’s Student Arts Annual and has been published inFog Lit Journal Vol. 4, upon which she is now on the editorial team for Poetry. She also spent a year completing her Masters in English Literature at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where she continued to take short fiction workshops. She hopes to publish a book of poetry and a novel.