Attempts at Poetry

We've recently finished the poetry unit of my creative writing class, which in college terms means the final drafts of my poems will soon be due.  After teacher-feedback, revision, roommate-review, revision, peer-workshop, and a little more revision, I now turn to you.  Beloved friends, family-members, and other readers: I need your help.  I would really appreciate comments on this poem.  Tell me what you thought about it, how it made you feel, what parts you felt were confusing, what sort of questions the poem left you with, anything!  

ps- for those who like to worry about me, no- I am not depressed, life is not horrible, it's just a poem!

Pain

Winter hits,

again and

again.

After each time

the sun bursts

and sweeps

the sky blue

and persuades me

to believe

 in summer,

I awake

the next

day to

grey.

My heart sinks

with my feet

into black water,

gathered in small

rivers along

slippery streets,

frigid pulp

swimming with

dregs left

by passing

cars.

That first

November week,

cold air slapped

my cheeks

and bit

my toes

and gnawed

into my ears,

grinding like

childhood ear

infections.

And each

December gust

threatened to

shatter me

like the icicle

that has lost

its battle

with gravity

and, at the

end of its

long fall finds

only hardened

earth.

But I don’t

shatter, instead

I crack along

my lips and

the once

soft skin around

my fingernails

till I

bleed.

And now

January passes so

I step again

into the wind;

my fingers

now numb,

my feet

forever frozen

and I slip

on the ice

and fall

face first

into the snow

and feel

nothing.

But which

do I prefer?

To let the

cold crawl

into my bones

until I am

numb. Or

for the sun

to return

and melt

away the ice

which has

replaced my

soul until it

leaks, slowly

from my

eyes.