Snow had swept over your ankle and tucked the edges into the sneakers. You wouldn't take off the shoes - the floor was dirty, you said. Dirty.

Knees scraping wood, you crawled your way down the hall, arms thrusting the soap and rag in a one-two-breathe, one-two-breathe, one-two-breathe -

I left. It wasn't the raw scabs and the scraped pores, nor the wet slug trail the shoes left. It wasn't even the water - pale, then pink, then red from the sand-papered palms that never got that chance to heal.

I had to get out. The image of toes, blue-bruised with cold and pressed down in a plastic coffin, choked me.

I had to get out.

It was the smell of chlorine and the image of ice breaking off and falling into the silence of the hallway and swallowing your breaths. It was the thought of an icicle, waved like a magic wand to take your breath and smother it with racking coughs until there was no more one-two. Until there was no breath.

Until there was silence.

It was me wanting it.