Gilded cage so small and tiny
Even singing comes out whiny
Stinking of fake fresh and piney
Tis the season
Leaking water warm and briny
With good reason

Christmas cheer and glasses toast
Loved ones smile and laugh and boast
I sit perched upon my post
A tinsled column
Invisible reluctant host
A heart that's solemn

A longing for a love so distant
The melancholy is persistent
A smile could erase it in an instant
On a face cherubic
For my heart is not resistent
It's theraputic

So that smile that is perfection
Is mirrored in my own reflection
Without a thought about rejection
Hallucinations
About the subtlest inflection
In Salutations

Surrounded by the merrily intense
With drunkard tendencies immense
A bar with all accoutrements
They pound tequila
Drinking away the sacraments
Oh yes, I feel ya

Merry time with old Kris Kringle
Guests all lubed enough to mingle
Mistletoe hangs and sleigh bells jingle
Gifts homemade
Tables adourned and glasses tingle
Gold brocade

Still I sit all caged and flightless
Blind to joy all sad and sightless
Drink could make it hurt a mite less
I'm going backward
Laying here all limp and lifeless
Broke and fractured

Surrounded by the fake and vexing
Artificial and quite perplexing
Reality they are rejecting
The devil may care
Bellies bare and muscles flexing
Lost underwear

So ******* dancing to the jukebox
Lost alone here in the boondocks
There is no snow upon the rooftops
Ahead they forge
Find a room before that thing pops
It's so engorged

Neighbor ***** all dressed in orange
Wearing gold to make the poor cringe
Stripping time to fill her syringe
I'll be her hinderance
Still too drunk from her last binge
Faulty remembrance

Ridding riff raff from the party
People still drunk on Bacardi
Noxious gasses burp and farty
With toilets makeshift
Worn out makeup on the smarty
She needs a facelift

Time to let the people go
Too tired to keep watching the show
Drinking hard and walking slow
Verbose yet listless
Honey I don't want to know
It's not my business

i remember that day in the afternoon sun
the garter snake passed lazily through the tall yellow-headed sourgrass
or maybe time was edging toward stillness
as it so often does in mental replays

there was cold, clear water in a tall, clean glass
that sat still at the end of your fingers
the sunlight hit the sides and it came through the water tilted
at the same angle as your head as you smiled
i saw the condensation on your hand
and wondered if it would feel cool against my skin
or if all I'd feel was the warmth of you
i could feel the glaciers melting
drop by drop by drop

and a warm, soft wind
covered up everything
on the day your love came screaming through me

you had oranges and lemons in a canvas bag beside you
different hues of summer in that pouch you brought along
there were seven different kinds of light welling up inside of you
you smeared citrus pulp all over me, in laughter like song
gone too quickly to tell you I longed for you to stay
gone to good old east rutherford three thousand miles away

i felt the warm surge blast my mind
coming in from behind
on the day your love came screaming through me

in the fresh light of day
i felt something falling away
on the day your love came screaming through me

                                                 *i remember that day
                                                  time was edging toward stillness
                                                  as it so often does in replays

This poem has been submitted for possible publication.  It will be reposted as soon as possible upon final determination.  Please feel free to peruse my poesy at your leisure.

Thank you so much,
PrttyBrd

The shades are drawn in endless daylight, begging the night to fall yet loathing the months of night that will too soon follow these endless months of days.  Sleep does not come swiftly as feet twitch restlessly under cool sheets. The mind relives peaceful mornings by the creek with fishing rods in hand ******* on lollipops and skipping stones. Stones that for others seem to float on the surface, yet, thrown by my young hand sank like the rocks that they were. click, click, click, the beads of the abacus counting time in my dreamlike wannabe state. The beep of the microwave oven jars the mind and the scent of coffee wakes the brain, only to realize it was the sound of the alarm clock and the cupboard does not hold the coffee so loved in dreams yet detested in reality. The solitude of morning, which looks like evening, which looks like night tastes like rotten onions in the mouth you struggle eat with. Remnants of equestrian dreams linger in a hazy head pounding like a basketball across the the court. The lampshade is covered in a purple scarf, giving off just enough light to not have to open the shades.  

Day begins with a gargle of mouthwash that tastes like Campho Phenique

hoping to get rid of the residue of rotten onion dreams that remind you of a life you never thought you'd live.