gray holiday
When I was little, I used to wrap myself in Christmas, all foiled paper and giant bows and tiny kittens playing in ornament packaging, sweet on the tip of my tongue, honey dripping down my ribs
but I feel like the holiday ages faster than I do, and the world keeps on spinning, and turning gray,
and I cling to its skin, until asked otherwise
“make it feel like Christmas again”
my mother once boiled a pot of cloves the night before Christmas, adding cinnamon and oranges, and everything spicy, answering a child’s request
and the house smelled wonderful and warm and open
and a cat curled up on my lap
and the TV crackled to ABC
but still, the skin of the earth looked gray, and my insides were strained, and here I was, asking for something rare and real and wonderful
when, really
the night before Christmas is just a day of the year.
