A Quiet Christmas

Sometimes, I watch the snow fall and wonder if it remembers every hand it touches.

Each flake feels like a whispered prayer, soft and fleeting, melting before it can tell me its secrets.

The air is thick with pine and cinnamon,

smells that wrap themselves around memories I thought I had forgotten—

the laughter of voices now silent,

the warmth of hands I can no longer hold.

The twinkling lights on the tree dance like stars

caught between branches that reach out, as if to hold the night still.

I stand there, gazing,

pretending the glow is enough to fill the spaces where shadows linger.

Sometimes, I sit by the fire, listening to its crackling hum,

its warmth pressing against the cold that somehow lives deeper inside me.

I sip hot cocoa, watching the marshmallows swirl,

their sweetness a small mercy in the quiet.

The world slows down in December,

as if it too is searching for something lost beneath the frost.

There’s a stillness, a breath held in wonder—

perhaps of hope, perhaps of longing.

I string together wishes like garlands,

hanging them in my heart alongside regrets I’ve learned to forgive.

The stockings sway gently,

as though they know their emptiness is only temporary.

Sometimes, I walk outside and stare at the sky,

its vastness a reminder that even in darkness, there is always light.

And as the bells ring out in the distance,

I close my eyes and whisper,

“Merry Christmas.”

Perhaps the stars will hear. Perhaps someone, somewhere, will feel it too.