The skin around my eye sockets ache
A thumping dull thud
On this Christmas Eve
I drink hot chocolate, a glass of red
I wish I felt like I had it all together.

The television rumbles behind me
My boyfriend and I
We line up like soldiers
To try and determine
How to better treat
And be with one another.

Like a worn down page
Near the end of a book
The front cover you first fell in love with
The introduction you might have mistook
But as you read on
You couldn't help but flip and flip again
Drinking and soaking up the red coated ***
Of delicious page to page.

But we discovered today
In the wooded neighborhood
Called McGee Estates
Where I hang my tired hat for a few days
That a transfer of emotions and hard comings
Have come and settled
And with white torched fingertips
Breathed their name into mine.

An awareness, we find it
We discover it with a pail and shovel
I imagine mistletoe must be hanging
Everyone around me gets engaged
Or their videos go viral
And it doesn't make me bitter at all
I just fight to try and live my best life.

A big deep breath
A surrender to the knowledge
That I cannot conquer and own everything there is
Expectations whistle and thistle
Like the Southern whisper of morning dew
As I run rampant
Trying to discover whats new
Whats new.

But whats new is here
And within me as it always has been
That burnt page doesn't have to spiral into embers
Or a lonely attitude

Its Christmas
Its almost Christmas
I feel as though I've aged eons
But this is the hustle
This is the point of no finish line.