Shatter (a lonely Christmas poem)

One, wait for the light to come on again.

You ain’t ever going to kill hope

Because if you did I’d be a dead girl out of matchsticks.

Hope flutters and clings to the sheer cliffsides of insanity

Because hope is the dead-out definition of “against all odds.”

One, wait for the light to come on again.

Not the hope light, that never went out.

The

Nameless light forged from

“Once upon a time I was happy, with you” to

“On this day hinges the series of events where I can pinpoint when the world ended.”

The nameless light is formed,

Equal parts once upon…I was

And

This day…the world ended,

There is a light brilliantly created in there, addition or multiplication or chemistry

And through the flames and forge it equals=the world built out of a shattered glass bulb,

Puzzle-pieced whole,

Glass gaps like teeth, radiating the first genuine smile you’ve mustered in years.

By the light of all that is holy

I wish that smile upon you.

—

Two, I wish you, a merry christmas.

By the loneliness of determining at midnight you will be alone forever,

Here’s to end of lightbulb-worlds 

And all the glue and invention it takes to build something new from the glass.

By the loneliness of hugging yourself while dancing, a solitary judge in the dark window,

Here’s to the cracks left around mote-sized forms

Where a nameless light can seep through

Once you figure out how to turn it on.

By the loneliness of lips smiling to the low music,

Here’s to your gap-filled teeth behind gates of red

Waiting for when you can really mean it again.