after we watched how the grinch stole christmas and you still didn’t bother to text me back

by Kaydance Rice

tears freeze on my cheeks and i tear
them off to feel the sting of it. i walk
with my feet pointed out because i read

somewhere it gives penguins more traction
and i feel black and white and red
all over. i feel like my skin is tearing

itself open exposing my arteries to paper
snowflakes or freezer burn. my chest
split open with icicles and almost-melted

road slush. i want to break my bones
in snow boots. taint the polar bear’s fur
with blood. maybe after crashing my car

into a snow plow. with my skull
cracked open and brain spread across
the windshield, red drips onto my legs

as my toes fall off. i sipped spiked
eggnog. i wanted you to build me
into one of those mall ice sculptures,

dripping all over the tile floor.
my organs have been reconfigured
by that santa sculpture you ran over

in your mom’s front yard because
we were supposed to be like penguins
not like the documentary but the ones

that never leave each other’s side. i’m
waiting for you to notice the leaves
crushed underneath half white

but mostly gray slush and the blood
dripping through my christmas sweater,
like the lights we hung from your

garage roof constantly flickering
and you can’t tell how bright
it is until it’s dark out. or like

rudolph’s nose, if it was less shiny
or more oozing. last christmas
you stole each ornament off

our tree and all of my teeth. this year,
i gave them to you. i’m waiting
for another false spring. to forget
winter before freezing over again

Kaydance Rice is a writer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has been recognized by the Poetry Society of America, Michigan State University, Albion College, the Alliance of Young Artists and Writers, among others. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in the Taco Bell Quarterly, YoungArts Anthology, Up the Staircase Quarterly, voicemail poems, Full Mood Magazine, and elsewhere. In her free time, Kaydance enjoys playing the viola, rambling about existentialism, and spending time with her plants.