One Part Poet, Two Parts Viking

I've got the jitters again, like some kind of junkie. I shake in the wee hours of the night, as the sun slowly rises, seeking to murder vampires and chase away the nightmares. I can feel my fingers trembling, as if with an influx of adrenaline, like they would if I could lay them across your naked skin. My stomach flutters, full of too much coffee and not enough real nourishment. There is electricity in my nerves, racing here and there, without any clear goal, no concise pattern, no sign of start or end. My lips twitch themselves into a smile I've tried to repress, to hide, for fear that you'd find me out.

Sometimes, I can be such a child.

There is a youthful vigor in this, a relaxing reminder that the many winters I've survived have not aged me beyond my prime, beyond this place in life that is open to mistakes and adventures. Not many things grant me that these days. We're all getting older and, I suspect, we grow wearier in heart than in body. Our flesh and bones are young, powerful, and full of prospects. Our minds have been convinced that we're too old for this kind of tom-foolery, that the days of silly crushes and hapless flirting are too far behind us to reclaim. Our minds have been misled.

I should have figured this out some time ago, the connection between body and mind. The way that, when one finds the truth the other can be shown, made to follow. Life is equal parts mental and physical, and all things encompassed are divided as such. I find myself drawn to you, part physical, part otherwise, and I can convince the rest to follow.

You're arrival here has been timely, and an epiphany accompanied you that if I am to stand with bared chest to the storm, to the roiling, wrathful sea, and set out across these waves to find distant shores to plunder, to conquer, to unite, I must be whole. Perhaps, then, your coming is a gift from these gods I hold so dear.

There was something about the way the snow fell on you that entranced me. There is nothing inherently permanent about it, nothing to tie us together indefinately. And yet, the season seems to linger forever, the snow and the winter hold to the earth, unrelenting, undaunted by the inevitability of the warmth returning. It holds sway over all the world, an icy throne drawing its power from the threat of never departing. I find comfort in that kind of duality.

Only the heartiest and, perhaps, the most foolhardy, brave these days of little light and merciless cold. We hunt for prey, for glory, for the thrill and the chance that, should we meet a wanderer stronger than ourselves, more blessed by the gods, we will have the privilege to die honorably and be received.

Some nights, I pray that you will be my killing ground and that, when you continue on your path through this place, I will continue my journey far away from this world.

Yours,
-S.R.