Beauty

You sit in a bleak wasteland.
The world exists in black and white, with dull greys in between.
You are cold.
Cold and alone.
Alone in the chill of night.
The cold creeps upon your quivering form.
The stark tree under which you huddle hinders not the biting wind.
You have sat under this tree for so long.
Waiting.
Waiting for someone.
For anyone.
For anything more to enter your heart than the frigid air.
The boreal breeze leaving you ailing and algid there.
You can feel the frost and recall the rime.
You are accustomed to the ague.
You have almost acclimated to the algor
When you see her.
You see her eyes -
Bright pools of blue.
You see them and the ice begins to crack.

Beauty.

Staring at you with piercing eyes.
No longer alone in the wastes.
You see her and the brumal bitterness is banished.
Farewell to the frost and the frore
For now and evermore.

Beauty.

You are caught in her gaze.
You fall into her eyes
Into blue waters flowing freely.
The ice cracks.
There is pain.
One must take care.
Having been so long in the cold, one forgets the fire that burns.
The heat will heal, but hold!
So long alone, can one learn to love again?
Love?
Her eyes bring you back.
She stares.

Beauty.

And then it occurs to you:
That snow leopard might be staring because she's hungry.

...

Run.

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(Inspiration)