I won’t do it.
You can’t make me.
Not going to happen.
I refuse.
I admit that I open the
grates back up today.
I come the closest I have
since April, maybe May.
The sudden change
surprises me today, as if it were not predicted.
However, it was
predicted.
There shall be no feigned
surprise when chilly air streams in.
It is easy at work to
throw on a sweater,
Pull it tight around me,
Shiver a little and debate putting on a fleece, too,
Though at the end of the day, even this is not enough.
Pull it tight around me,
Shiver a little and debate putting on a fleece, too,
Though at the end of the day, even this is not enough.
The air is cold and raw.
Rain falls straight and
steady.
I get home, and the house
is also cold and raw.
Going from room to room, I
open the heater grates,
The
same grates I painstakingly close in the late spring
To
keep the basement heat from crawling into the rest of the house
Once summer sets in.
I look at the thermostat,
study it closely.
Then I walk away.
That’s right.
I … walk … away.
Simply put, I am not
ready.
I am not ready to flick
that switch,
To hear the furnace cough to life,
To smell the dusty aroma of the vents
clearing out
For the first time this
season.
Damn you, autumn.
Damn you all to hell for
swallowing up the last days of summer.
I will wait it out.
My toes might fall off,
and
My hands might curl into icicles, and
My ears might break off like pieces
of frozen china, and
My nose might stay frozen for
days.
I won’t do it.
You can’t make me.
You can’t make me turn on
the heat.
