What Hardens

I stepped out at six

and my breath caught on the glass.

Not vapor. Not a smudge.

Actual ice crystals,

geometric, deliberate,

like my lungs had decided to show their work.

I traced one with my thumb.

The frost broke. Reformed.

Reformed again.

There's a temperature where everything changes.

Not gradually.

At one degree it's invisible.

At another, undeniable.

I stood there in my coat

watching the air turn solid,

watching the cold prove

it had always been there,

that precision

requires only the right conditions

and something to witness it.

The car warmed.

The frost retreated.

I sat in the driver's seat

and watched it disappear,

thinking about how quickly

we dissolve

when the pressure shifts,

how little it takes

to make us ordinary again.