Joyless

A Poem

The twinkling lights, pink, blue, green, suddenly seem like that place you end up in your dreams; unnerving, but mesmerizing.

This Season feels stranger than years past

Colder. Less joyful.

I used to believe in something more magical, where the dreams that the lights remind me of come true.

There’s a ring of evergreen confetti in the corner where the tree sits, banished.

The ornaments on it aren’t as shiny as they seemed last year.

The lights, not as bright.

The plastic tree is shorter than I remembered

and it gave me hives on my hands when I split the branches from their stiff sleeping positions.

That poor thing, stuffed into a box all summer. Tsk. My branches would tangle too.

Now, this towering bush of PVC stands beaming, decorated for the rest of winter, while my face falls, so joyless, so macabre.

Snow falls ever so lightly outside, and even from in here I can hear its deafening silence.

The hush of the city is tangible through the window.

Trucks on every street spit dirty smoke exhaust, and salt crusts on their rusty underbellies. Their engines sigh under the weight of the cold, their metal bodies groan. Everyone is looking at their phones. Our bodies creak like metal too.

The taillights on the street below blur through my teary eyelashes, and I place my hand on the glass. It fogs up around my fingers, grasping for any semblance of warmth.

I swear that I can hear violins somewhere, and always in the tune of a hymn that I recognize but can’t place.

Songs of angels and adoration.

My favourite angel ornament has a chip in her glass halo, and I nick my finger on it every year.

I rub my thumb over the closing wound. My nails are bitten to the quick.

My Advent Calendar was missing yesterday’s date, but I’m sure that I’ll find it on Christmas Eve, because it’s never truly missing, just out of sight

I hope the same can be said for the joy that I seem to be missing

My cousin wasn’t expecting to come to the family Christmas party

So she wasn’t in the name draw for the gift exchange

But here she is. And as she sits in the corner like the tree, for decoration only, her face still shines like the lights.

How can she sit there so content? Just watching us with all our ribbons and our gratitude.

An echoed scream of cheerier years past harmonizes with the invisible violins, shrieking giftless! Joyless!

The cousins are high, the turkey is dry, and darkness takes to the sky in the early afternoon

Where is the fucking joy?

What is the point of the season if it feels like a dream?
If it moves too quickly to even be perceived?

Was Bethlehem also this miserable? This cold?

The joy from years past seems intangible, unreachable.

The tree stands there gleaming, taunting me.

Its shiny silver baubles emulate the glistening tears down my face, the shimmery ice melting on the windowsill and dripping down the wall. Tiny spores of mold on the paint like whole cloves pressed into the skin of an mandarin orange.

I thought that baking would help, the tang of the cloves, the cinnamon powder tickling my nose, and the tight aroma of ginger wrapping me up.

But I have no sugar.

And my oven is broken.

I’m allergic to my Christmas tree.

The stable isn’t near as warm as the inn.

Maybe I can try again next year to find some joy. But for this season, it might be too late.

The lights still feel like I’m looking into a dream that will never come true.
And maybe believing just isn’t enough anymore.

(Some details are exaggerated and fictionalized)