Burning of eyes as I just awoke
My room pitch black
The warmth of my bed makes me want to stay forever
But excitement boils over my five year old mind
as I remember it is Christmas morning

My feet turn to ice as I stick them out of the blanket
The floor making them stick.
I lift up my feet and gallop to my sisters room.
Boom, boom, boom,
My heels make contact with the hardwood floor

I grab the golden **** to my sisters room
I push quietly but fast
The door makes a slight squeak
I sprint to her bedside.
“WAKE UP CAMILLE IT’S CHRISTMAS!” I yell in the middle of her room.
At that point, I didn’t care about waking my parents up.

She sits right up with a smile on her face
And flings the blankets beside her legs as she puts her feet to the ground.
We race down the hallway
Dogs nails tapping on the floor as they follow us to the living room
The big, dusty, gross purple couch is the barrier between
me and the present I have been dreaming about for this entire year,
A new bike.
I run around the couch to see the chrome shining in the moonlight
The tires casting a shadow over the small area rug.
Stockings on the back of the big leather chair,
which instantly drew our attention.

We tear open the stockings and compare the new trinkets we got.
Cardboard, tin wrapping, and chocolate wrappers flying everywhere.
We were smiling so much I swear we could hear them.

Parents come out to see us grinning beside the heater as we tear apart our favorite toy for the day.
We gather around the living room like it was superbowl sunday and the tree is our
flatscreen.
The blue and silver and red and green collage of corny wrapping paper,
the giant boxes wrapped tightly and perfectly.

Dad is beside the tree, deciding which present we can open, and lightly tossing it to us.
We catch is as carefully as we could, set it on our laps and wait for our turn to unwrap.

As thank you’s are thrown around like baseballs at a little league practice
I patiently glance at my mom, and get the nod that I can unwrap.
This square box is staring eye to eye with me and I get the jitters as I unwrap it.
The red paper finally off, I open the box with ease.

What I found was the coolest thing ever, thats all I remember.

But now, that box is filled with my happiness.
My memories.
Never has an empty box held so much.
It has the family dinners,
The camp outs and bon fires.
The laughs that come from the belly while playing games around the table.
The piano lessons for hours
And those coloring books that were more sacred than the bible.

But for now, the box is closed for the time being.
Sitting upon a shelf in my closet, waiting for the right time to be opened again.

The greatest gift I have ever received is the memories of home.
What home is to me is all inside that box.

Dads cooking on the table,
Moms questions about our day at school,
Camille talking about her math homework.

Now it’s just two lonely guys sitting at a table
discussing how ****** the economy is,
girls,
that one time when he tried to give me “the talk”
But he doesn’t need to, I go to public school after all.

What I am trying to say is, I miss those family dinners more than anything.
I miss the nights we would spend outside gazing at the stars
Pointing out the constellations in the sky and making up our own.

I look for those constellations all the time.
I once found a rose, and I named it Camille.
Dad never knew why I named it that, since shes my sister.
I named the constellation of the rose Camille because
Well, she has the rosy cheeks and the lovely smile.
But she sure as hell has her thorns.

A family dinner now is three people instead of four,
I say bedroom with a plural,

But this family, although gone through hell and back,
We live together in between different walls, roads, and doors.
But most of all, we live behind our present, and live in the past.

I want to end this by saying, Christmas brings new memories and my favorite time of the year,
because then my family exists.
I started to open presents slower and slower,
and hugging tighter and tighter.
And loving more and more.
I love you, Mom, Dad, Camille.
I really do, even when you think I don’t,
I love you guys, and I always will.

I once asked my little 4 year old cousin,
“What do you want to be when you are older?”
Astronaut, he says.
“Because I want to shoot for the stars.”

If you think about it,
A 4 year old has more of a grasp on life than most of the people around.
To think that 4 year old kids are optimistic because they don’t know how to be pessimistic.

I still can’t believe that one day,
this innocent little boy
will realize the true hell that is reality.

One day we we outside in his yard playing with his tonka trucks.
And the whole time he was saying that he wants to grow up
and use actual trucks.
Drive the big bow dump trucks.

I agreed with him, saying I do too.
But I was thinking to myself,
that I shouldn’t quite tell him to cherish his little years yet.
Let it sink in for a little bit.
His little four year old mind
will soon enough be corrupted by society and judgments.

Some day, he will see how growing up feels.
Having to deal with the prejudice and how mean people are.
Like, back off this is how I  live my life.
Not me living your life,
I don’t live to please you.

My life is not your business.
What are you to think something about me when you don’t know the half of it?
If you had a single grasp on how things go,
you would realize judgements are for criminals and their sentences
and not me and how I speak my sentences.

Dear Luke,
I wish that someday things will change.
Dear Luke,
Never change who you are, no matter who tells you.
Dear Luke.