It just won’t go away. The chill that pierces deep within. Or does it come from inside of me? It’s the worst in the limbs. My arms and legs, so cold no matter what I do. And then it creeps in. Up the spine, through the meninges, into the scalp. My hair stands on end with the chill. I’m just so damn cold. Make it go away. It makes all the bad feelings worse. The cold pulls me inwards, into myself. Into the thoughts I want to get away from. I dwell on them, feel the darkness of them as the chill gets worse.
The arms and shoulders always have it. That’s where I notice it the most. I could be sweating in the sun and still I would feel cold. The radiation seeps into my skin, warming, feeling good for a fleeting moment. But then the chill reasserts itself. The heat never penetrates deep enough, and my bones continue to freeze the rest of me.
I can forget the cold at times. Find a distraction, an obsession, an addiction. But you can’t keep yourself distracted forever. Eventually the thoughts will creep back in, and with them, the chill. I was enjoying a few minutes ago and now I’m staring into the corner. Not really thinking. Just a welling of dread and the inevitable cold. I shiver and grimace as it creeps up from my arms into the neck. The left corner of my mouth tries to slide off of my face. A vein in my neck bulges. A disfiguring facial tic is set free as I lose control to the cold. I want to curl up into a ball. I want to be warm.