The idea of this poem is that each stanza should take you 10 seconds or a bit more to read, hence the counting down in the first couple of lines of the poem. It’s about a man who is laying in snow 52 seconds away from certain death and his emotions at that time as he thinks about the woman who he loved who caused him to be 52 seconds away from his death, 52 seconds to hypothermia.

And there she left me

52 seconds to hypothermia

As I lay on the stinging snow

Freezing in my solemn state.

I listened intently to her

Crunching footsteps as they

Echoed in the white enigma

That enveloped me.

And there she left me

42 seconds to hypothermia

Amidst the blanket of snow

Cascading on me like dust.

Footsteps gone now and

All my ears amplified was

My wheezy breath rasping

In the swallowing silence.

And there she left me

32 seconds to hypothermia

Whilst I lay petrified

In the ominous evening.

The numbness of the biting

Cold, almost like fire

As the snow burned

My crinkled skin.

And there she left me

22 seconds to hypothermia

As I wondered how I

Crumbled in the snow.

My breath slowed down

And I lay thinking what

I had done to deserve

My glacial death.

And there she left me

12 seconds to hypothermia

My lovely ice queen with

Her molten heart was gone.

Unrequited love speaks

Millions when it comes

To the myriad of icy

Emotions running in me.

And there she left me

2 seconds to hypothermia.

How frosty was the only woman

I loved so much that

She left me in the snow

To die, to fall apart in

The freezing cold where

I lay like a solid rock,

No more seconds left

To hypothermia.