Maya's "Numb" is about a cold so deep it stops feeling like weather and starts feeling like a state of being. The wind begins outside, but by the first stanza it has seeped "deep, deep into my bones." The repeated word makes the cold sound like it keeps sinking further, past anything the speaker can reach.
The speaker's body gives in quickly. Their knees buckle, and the capitalized "GRAVITY" makes it feel as if the whole world is pulling them down. Then the wind turns into something more sinister: it "vanquishes souls" and "spreads like poison," clinging on and refusing to let go. The cold seems to stand for something emotional, such as despair or emptiness, though the poem never says exactly what caused it. The final questions, "Where have your fires gone?", sound like a plea for warmth, passion or hope. No answer comes. The mood is bleak and heavy, and the poem ends by admitting that the numbness and the cold are both unbearable.