The Day Before Christmas Eve

- The Seasons Of Grief: Chapter IV - Poem VI -

I once loved the season; not anymore,

Its warmth has turned into bitter frost

I don’t think I feel joy anymore,

The holly, now hollow and lost

I want to be held like I once was,

The snow globe’s cracked and leaking

It still snows in my dreams by the nail salon,

The neighborhood school kids are still cheering

Dreary nights at Grandma’s house were where you’d find me,

It was twenty miles from where I was raised,

The snow consumed the place where I once swung on the pine tree

I took for granted a feeling that was evergreen,

You think it’d stay with me

The tinsel’s rusted thin,

The star’s been tilted ever since the new tree

I don’t want this to linger anymore,

This house feels sharp and unconfined

I’d only visited the farm once, then never again,

The “what ifs” claw at my mind

What is Christmas now?

The wreaths smell of old attic boxes

The candles burn with a sway of caution,

The fire goes out once the forests take the foxes

I can’t open my eyes toward the past,

But I breathe in this still night so deeply

How are Christmases in Redmond?

I wonder if I go there, if I’d be afraid to sleep

The village curses the snow on Houston’s streets,

At two AM, I head down the stairs to get a drink

And I stand by the tree and stare at the presents,

On the night before Christmas Eve

The carol’s hum, the movies play,

The cookies bake, or they did at one time

Past me is stuck in the corners of that memory,

Now I’m tangled, and the colors have gone awry

I want to wear my pajamas to bed once more,

To feel like a kid and not be an adult, and grieve

But that doesn’t happen, so I try to slowly breathe,

On the day before Christmas Eve 

I wake up on Christmas morning to a new feeling,

“That magic has left,” the boy in the corner says, as he heads out the door to leave