A titan wind blew through the canyon, flanking trees and rocks with the frozen breath of the river. He was high in the branches above me, rooted firmly to his prison of ice and organic material. I yelled, but my voice sank in the cold and rolled over the cliff's edge. His eyes locked with mine and I promised him everything. Fire, safety, a legacy. He blinked. His eyelids frosted heavy with regret and severed the bond between us.
Pain seared through my fingertips as I wiggled them, trying to keep them alive. I had given up on feeling my toes a long time ago. I grimaced as I forced my hands to clamp around the frozen knots in the trunk. I heaved myself up, gasping for oxygen in the thin, wet air. I caught the lowest branch and straddled it. I searched his face still ten feet above me, but he stared back at me empty, lifeless like a deer strung by its rear haunches.
Upward I climbed until I reached him. I touched my nose to his, my forehead to his, my mouth to his lips. I breathed warm air onto his skin and whispered words as light as fog that lingered and swirled around us. But he wouldn't come back to me. Fear had frozen him in a way the climate never could.
A tear trailed it's way down my cheek. Salt water never tasted so bitter. I kissed him one last time and skidded my way back to the earth. My heart felt as numb and cold as my feet. Hallucinations of a fire that was long burnt out prodded me forward. I didn't look back.
A part of my soul is stuck there in that pine tree. It stayed frozen to him like a wet tongue to an ice cube. I know I'll never get it back. Sure, my heart aches and my soul burns from that winter. But I have faith that if I can grow new skin on my toes and my frostbitten fingers that maybe, just maybe, the intangible can regenerate too.
