Agains

Look at me, I'm growing, she says, as she unboxes a white Christmas tree in the already crowded West Village apartment. It's only different. The twisted monster unfolds and writhes in pastel ornaments and jaunty lights, you laugh and toast to ghosts of holidays past, it's a delicious tradition you wouldn't want to do without, even as everyone rolls their eyes and tears their hair with every year. I stare past the branches, lost in trains of thoughts that run nowhere, slowly. The walk home is cold, and just as heavy in my bones.

There was a moment, in the strange afternoon, where I sat in the emergency room of a downtown hospital, wracking my brain for morsels of light, where I thought this is what life is. We got through it after all, didn't we? But I came home with my head exploding and fell asleep before my time, and all I could think was but this isn't what I want. Sometimes the Universe doesn't leave it up to us, and then what do we do? The holiday lights sparkle regardless.

I just forget how I ever did it, myself.