To all the Christmases behind me
I remember how you used to be
Sitting around the Christmas tree
Listening to stories of wise men three

Of all the Christmases gone by
I remember crystal skys
And sparkling grape juice in the ice
The pungent smells of Christmas wine

For all the Christmases I've seen
I recall the Christmas dream
Of gifts and sweets beneath the tree
And stuffed stockings waiting for me

And all the Christmases I've reached
I feel the sand beneath my feet
All those games down at the beach
And tossing bread out to the sheep

And all the Christmases end
By decorating ginger bread
And laying down our heavy heads
On feather pillows on our beds

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her
son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland,
though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we
waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they
would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and
moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their
eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever
since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or,
if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar
cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring
out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier
in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the
house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a
newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and
smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his
slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and
ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose
into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier
Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt,
Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would
say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets,
standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills *******, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and
mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making
ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's ****, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-
shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you
wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now,
alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not
to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp,
except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and
a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a
little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that
an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the
trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the
red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who,
if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar ****, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and
women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles
their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all
the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in
their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling
pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying
their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then
holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the
kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to
break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this
time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing,
no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite,
to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face
of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high,
so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled
windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after
dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch
chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie
Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some
elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port,
stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to
see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In
the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among
festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions
for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim
and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him
under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We
returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-
rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock
birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with ***,
because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like
owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the
stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving
of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we
stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand
in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant
and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them?
Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high
and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood
close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small,
dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry,
eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped
running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-
gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another
uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip
wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a
Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out
into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

(Sing along to the tune 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer).

This is a futuristic Christmas,
Sing along in an ode,
Global warming's reached the North Pole,
That's the end of ice and snow.

The Arctic's now a surf beach,
All your gifts out of reach,
There's some really naughty bad elves,
They're keeping all the gifts for themselves!

Where did good ole Santa go?
He's been on the **!
Santa came in bad girls' lane,
And he never was seen again!

Now Santa's got survivor baggage,
Mrs. Santa tossed away his clothes,
She divorced dear old Santa,
For hoing all the hoes!

Now there's a big beach party,
No Christmases ever again!
The bad girls are giving it to Santa,
No Christmases ever again!

This is a futuristic Christmas,
Global warming's reached the North Pole,
Sing along with Santa,
A futuristic Christmas in an ode!!!

(Let's Party...** ** **, Samta knows where all the bad girls go!!)

Briano Alliano performing at jupiter moon



hi dudes and welcome to Jupiter Moon and today christmas has come early

with a whole lot of funny christmas carols that i have wrote and the first one

joy to the world


joy to the world

christmas is great

a bumper holiday, i say, mate

you see we have roast dinners

and pavlova and fruit punch

and a mighty tasty super slush

tasty for the mouth, tasty for the mouth

tasty tasty, tasty for the mouth

i rule the world with my magic wand

i wave it when i feel great

hills and plains and rocks and streams to sit and have a look

at the wonderful water, at the wonderful water at the at the

wonderful water, oh yeah, you can almost taste that wine that

jesus turned it into

joy to the earth, oh jesus birth

thanks to the might of cronus

you see as his arrival into the world made everyone happy yeah

we sing the beautiful carols we sing the beautiful carols

we sing we sing we sing the beautiful carols

with all our pride,

ok dudes, that was a great song and here is my version of christmas bells are ringing

marshmallows and flavoured milk

oh what a wonderful sight you see

opening christmas presents

underneath the christmas tree

there are gifts for uncle Tom and uncle Jay

and each kid gave each present a little play

they sang carols like deck the halls

and away in a manger, silent night and joy to the world

and then out came the fruit punch we all can share

we go

ding a ling ding a ling christmas bells are ringing

oh yeah let’s party on christmas day is coming

the party is on for young and old

then mrs ratcombe came out

we thought ‘what a mole’

ding a ling oh yeah let it ring

the christmas bells are ringing

ding a ling, oh yeah it will ring

every single day

yeah santa came through your computer screen tonight saying ** ** ** to you

and he left many presents for mark and tom and little baby foo

you see they fed their faces on  turkey and lollies and more food

and each kid told santa that they were very good

ding a ling ding a ling

christmas bells are ringing

santa coming through your computer screen

to leave your presents there

and at each house he will have marshmallow slice and beer and coke

and *** ***** and white christmas, oh yeah

oh yeah oh yeah ding a ling

the christmas bells are ringing

merry christmas dudes

hi dudes and wasn’t that a great song and now here is sitting at the mall, because there is nothing i like better

is sitting at the mall especially as the christmas tree is up, here it goes

sitting at the mall

and man, i eat too much junk food

it makes me slow

it makes me weary

you see i want to positive so let’s party from now to christmas, fine

i will go to my family’s house and listen to the carols play

you see this brings on a perfect life

i like singing christmas carols

around the table on christmas day

i want to see the christmas parade in adelaide and a few weeks later in perth

and video them for youtube, so i can push up my views

every kid and big strong adult would say merry christmas

and have a wonderful day

and i go about my life filled with junk food saying

hi di hi di **, the big fat elephant is so slow

and i see the kids playing with their christmas gifts oh yeah

they consume lolly after lolly and they will get really fat

they will look liken santa, how about that

so i can feel fit and be a cool entertainer singing

jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way

oh what fun it is to play

on santa’s one horse open sleigh

and i am dreaming of a white christmas down here

well stop, cause in Australia it’s too **** hot

thanks dudes and now as it is coming on

a bit of summer weather


You see it's the summer weather
The barbecues are being cooked so well yeah
And the swimmers at the beach
are swimming between flags avoiding the sharks
And those crazy surfers as they surf with Santa
they drop off at the night club
to order a pina calada, yeah, that sure keeps us cool
You see it's summer weather
And you sun bake on the beach yeah
put on heaps of suncream, so cancer don’t strike, yeah yeah yeah
You see it's the summer weather
My poppy came out with a nice beer
And my two kids bobby and Toby had a coke
and they enjoyed that a lot
You see it takes away the hot, especially in ice
And it is great in the summer weather
Cause our drinks keeps us cool
You see it's the summer weather
The cricket and baseball is a playing
You see the players take about 5 hours to move oh yeah
And we see these players stand around forever
And in late of summer is the summer of tennis
watching the best players from around the world
and afterwards they go to the pub and celebrate
we say it's the summer weather cause those drinks keeps us cool
it’s the summer weather, the end of another year yeah
we lay the fireworks on the beach
so the lightshow, will be great
as midnight approaches we yell HAPPY NEW YEAR and then we say
what great summer weather, out champagne sure, keeps us cool

and now here is the song summer wonderland


The beer is chilling in the esky
Abc the BBQ is nice and hot yeah
And the kids are playing with their presents oh yeah that sounds real rad
And the swimming pool is being cleaned by your father and you can't swim in it cause the pool claurine
Can **** you well
You see we are running around
Up up and down
In a summer wonderland
You see Johnny Butthead and
Micheal Kenny and Robbie roe
And Kenny gee gee
And the superman of the heavens
Brings us nice weather and that makes us feel great yeah
Walking around singing a song
Walking in a summer wonderlsnd
On the beach we all made a sand castle and buried uncle Robbie
In the sand and then as he called
Out come on ya bludgers
Give us adults a ****** hand
You see when Robbie got out of that
He jumped around the beach
I was buried in sand
And yeah mate yeah I understand
Walking along singing a song
Living in a summer wonderland

ok dudes, that was a great song, and now dudes here is a song about santa claus new journey

you see santa claus came through the computer through the computer through the computer

santa claus cam through my computer, to give the gifts oh yeah

every time he came through the computer rolling around in cyber space

every time he came through the computer, he went up and then went down

you see tommy was a little boy trying to be good and susie was a little girl

who wanted santa to come, oh yeah

but susie was raised with santa going down the chimney yeah

and she went in and asked her dad, how can santa come here

and dad got out his apple Mac and said santa claus comes through this computer

through this computer through this computer

santa claus comes through this computer

to zap your presents there

you every christmas he comes through your computer

rolling around in cyber space

you see you can see every christmas eve you can see in your computer

a vision of santa coming through

santa claus comes through your computer through your computer through your computer

santa comes through your computers

santa will still eat lollies and cakes and a nice cold can of beer

so don’t be shy to leave them out as santa will be happy oh yeah

you see christmas day is a good day for santa to drop by

but for those families who have no chimney they will wonder how

you see santa claus comes through your computer through your computer through your computer

santa claus comes through your computer, ready to zap presents to you

here he is going through your computer, rolling around in cyber space

you see here santa is dropping from your apple Mac with a very loud thump

santa claus comes through your computer through your computer through your computer

you see santa is dropping through your computer, oh yeah let’s party on


and now here is stop dreaming of a white christmas, cause it’s too **** hot, pretty cool dude

You see I believe the North Pole is
Great and has a lot of penazz oh yeah
And Robbie roe decided to host his
Own Christmas bash with a BBQ and beer oh yeah come on
And then Martin pence bought
100 cases of the most expensive
Wine money can buy
And his 12 year old son
Said what about the coke dad oh yeah
You see it"s ****** hot and you have for a drink so what about us
Kids we need coke, oh yeah
And Martin prince said to his son
That we will have enough coke
Oh yeah cute cause it's hot
And we need to cool ourselves down
So stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause it!'s too **** hot
And on the day of Christmas Eve it hit 37 degees and we didn't feel like doing much let alone the preparation of the party so what we did is have a
5 hour dip in the swimming pool oh yeah carn Christmas spirit right out of me, oh yeah come on dudes
And the kids kept on jumping on us
Leaving us sore but at least we were having a nice dip in the pool to cool ourselves down do we can get ready for the party oh yeah mate yeah
So stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause it's too **** hot you see you see with pretty great
Mountains  and candy cane fountains  so stop dreaming of a white Christmas csuse it's too **** hot for that too **** stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause it's too **** hot for that
The kids are playing backyard cricket yeah and the men came out
To have a hit and the ladies are in
There swearing as they cook the bird
But the ladies have an agreement
That the kids and men all do the cleaning up and talk about the sports whilst doing that
So stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause dudes
It's too **** hot too **** hot
Too **** hot for that
No white Christmases in Australia pal

and now it’s time to go, goodbye jupiter moon

christmas concert on venus by briano alliano




hi dudes and welcome to venus where we are celebrating christmas in a big way

and our first song is, santa brian is coming to town

ya better watch out ya better not cry

ya better be good cause i am telling you why

santa brian is coming to town

ya see he’s making a list and checking it twice

finding out what kids are naughty or nice

santa brian is coming to town

brian see you when he’s sleeping

he knows when your awake

gotta make everybody be bad or good

so be good for goodness sake

santa brian is coming to town

ya better party on like ya never going to stop

the beat will go bop pity bop bop bop

santa brian is coming to town

ya see my mate bing crosby, is alive in all our hearts

and then your mate brian allan does a really big ****

ya better watch out and keep the party going strong

party like the day is long

santa brian oh santa brian is coming to town boppity boo

and the next song is


         Stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause here is too **** hot


You see I believe the North Pole is
Great and has a lot of penazz oh yeah
And Robbie roe decided to host his
Own Christmas bash with a BBQ and beer oh yeah come on
And then Martin pence bought
100 cases of the most expensive
Wine money can buy
And his 12 year old son
Said what about the coke dad oh yeah
You see it"s ****** hot and you have for a drink so what about us
Kids we need coke, oh yeah
And Martin prince said to his son
That we will have enough coke
Oh yeah cute cause it's hot
And we need to cool ourselves down
So stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause it!'s too **** hot
And on the day of Christmas Eve it hit 37 degees and we didn't feel like doing much let alone the preparation of the party so what we did is have a
5 hour dip in the swimming pool oh yeah carn Christmas spirit right out of me, oh yeah come on dudes
And the kids kept on jumping on us
Leaving us sore but at least we were having a nice dip in the pool to cool ourselves down do we can get ready for the party oh yeah mate yeah
So stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause it's too **** hot you see you see with pretty great
Mountains  and candy cane fountains  so stop dreaming of a white Christmas csuse it's too **** hot for that too **** stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause it's too **** hot for that
The kids are playing backyard cricket yeah and the men came out
To have a hit and the ladies are in
There swearing as they cook the bird
But the ladies have an agreement
That the kids and men all do the cleaning up and talk about the sports whilst doing that
So stop dreaming of a white Christmas cause dudes
It's too **** hot too **** hot
Too **** hot for that
No white Christmases in Australia pal




       Summer weather

You see it's the summer weather
The barbecues are being cooked so well yeah
And the swimmers at the beach
are swimming between flags avoiding the sharks
And those crazy surfers as they surf with Santa
they drop off at the night club
to order a pina calada, yeah, that sure keeps us cool
You see it's summer weather
And you sun bake on the beach yeah
put on heaps of suncream, so cancer don’t strike, yeah yeah yeah
You see it's the summer weather
My poppy came out with a nice beer
And my two kids bobby and Toby had a coke
and they enjoyed that a lot
You see it takes away the hot, especially in ice
And it is great in the summer weather
Cause our drinks keeps us cool
You see it's the summer weather
The cricket and baseball is a playing
You see the players take about 5 hours to move oh yeah
And we see these players stand around forever
And in late of summer is the summer of tennis
watching the best players from around the world
and afterwards they go to the pub and celebrate
we say it's the summer weather cause those drinks keeps us cool
it’s the summer weather, the end of another year yeah
we lay the fireworks on the beach
so the lightshow, will be great
as midnight approaches we yell HAPPY NEW YEAR and then we say
what great summer weather, out champagne sure, keeps us cool


and now dudes we are going to sing away in a manger


away in a manger

no crib for a bed

the little lord buddha

l;ays down his sweet head

the stars in the bright sky

look down where he lays

the little lord buddha asleep on the hay

the cattle are lowing

buddha awakes

but the little lord buddha

no crying he makes

i love the lord buddha

as i look down from the sky

and stay by his bedside

till morning is nigh

be near me lord buddha

i ask thee to stay

close by me forever

i love thee to stay

bless all the dear children

under thy tender care

and fit us for nirvana

to live with thee there


    Summer wonderland



The beer is chilling in the esky
Abc the BBQ is nice and hot yeah
And the kids are playing with their presents oh yeah that sounds real rad
And the swimming pool is being cleaned by your father and you can't swim in it cause the pool claurine
Can **** you well
You see we are running around
Up up and down
In a summer wonderland
You see Johnny Butthead and
Micheal Kenny and Robbie roe
And Kenny gee gee
And the superman of the heavens
Brings us nice weather and that makes us feel great yeah
Walking around singing a song
Walking in a summer wonderlsnd
On the beach we all made a sand castle and buried uncle Robbie
In the sand and then as he called
Out come on ya bludgers
Give us adults a ****** hand
You see when Robbie got out of that
He jumped around the beach
I was buried in sand
And yeah mate yeah I understand
Walking along singing a song
Living in a summer wonderland




my next christmas song is joy to the world, here goes


joy to the world

the lord is come

let the christmas party shine

let everyone party on

and let heaven and nirvana sing

let heaven and nirvana sing

let heaven and nirvana and nirvana sing

joy to the world

the saviour reigns

and party right till the end

let everyone prepare him room

let all buddhas creatures grow

let buddhas creatures grow

let everyone belonging to buddha

let the spirit really grow

party on every night

   A cold for Christmas means PARTY PARTY


Oh yeah on the first day of XMAS
My coke bottle said to me
Buy a coke at the supermarket oh yeah
On the second day of  XMAS my coke bottle said to me get your cousin in the USA a present and a nice card to boot
On the third day of XMAS
My coke bottle said to me
How about inviting all out friends over for a slap up XMAS party dude
On the third day of XMAS my coke bottle said to me I need to give my
Grandmother some rioses to put in a vase on your toilet
On the fourth day of XMAS my coke bottle said to me  slam me down ya
Get ready to lift ya party spirits right till the day is long
On the fifth day of Christmas
My coke bottle said to me
How about we see the arrival of
Santa in the big Christmas parade in
Out gracious city
On the sixth day of Christmas
My coke bottle said to me
Yeah we need to give Tom and Benny a hand with the annual Christmas lights ok outside his house how delightful dude
On the seventh day of Christmas
My coke bottle said to me
Give Australia a present by booting
Abbott out oh yeseree
On the eighth day of XMAS my coke
Bottle said to me
How about you see the kids play in their Christmas play
On the ninth day of XMAS my coke bottle said to me how about a nice bit of bourbon in me to lift the family's spirit oh yeseree
On the tenth day of XMAS
My coke bottle said to me
How about we go to the nightclub
And party all night my dear old friend old pal
On the eleventh day my coke bottle gave to me a new clear head to get normal visions rather than stupid
Allan family delusions I know they help but ha ha ha
On the twelfth day of Christmas
My coke bottle gave to me
A lot of information saying coke is still a medicine don't listen to skeptics they are too much into the real world yeah on every day of Christmas my coke bottle said
No matter what ya do drink plenty of me I will make you XMAS sweet


ok dudes briano alliano says merry christmas

that night, i wore a polo shirt.
i thought hey, i'm going to a friend's
dorm, no need to dress up, right?
so i wore a polo shirt, a yellow and blue and pink
thing. i'd bought it from a charity shop
only weeks earlier, when i was still exploring
a new university town
and finding not-so-hidden gems;
and sure, it was three sizes too big
but it was comfortable, and made me feel safe.

turns out, you didn't care about polo shirts
or tank tops. you cared about what was underneath
and i was drunk enough to let you - or,
well, not really let you, but i didn't need to dress up
so i wore baggy clothes and a smile
so i had half a bottle of jack daniels
and i had a nineteen year old point to prove
and i had a pill that you gave me
and i had - sorry, have - a therapist's bill.

but this isn't about you. i don't write about you.
i make a point of not writing about you,
actually. which is to say that i write about you
in a way that doesn't let you hurt me anymore.
i write about what i was wearing
(did i deserve it? in my 1970s male t-shirt?)
or what i was drinking
(it was university)
or how i tried to throw myself into a river
in the aftermath
(but i didn't, because i got thirsty, and i didn't
want to die thirsty, so i went home).
no, i'm writing about the polo shirt i was wearing.

cotton, i think. polyester, probably.
the amazing technicolour haze of am i sober enough for this?
who knows how many iterations
of the same lancaster charity shop
it circled through, old men with families
and wives and kids -
it probably saw birthdays and christmases
and, safely tucked in the back of a closet,
shielded itself from the almost-crisis of cuban missiles.

and then, me. a nineteen year old
branching out into the world for the first time;
a lover of poetry, maker of music, naïve and beautiful.
then, it was just a polo shirt, and i wore it
as long as it was laundered, for a month or so,
until december. not that i stopped wearing it
because it was cold. it just reminded me of hands
and hands and hands and
****, how many hands can a man have?
how long will i have to feel them?

i didn't shower the day after, just slept.
a hangover, right? just a hangover.
and then, when the hot water in my dorm
daily ticked on, i washed every inch of myself
to get rid of you, and your foam banana shower gel
that your mother probably told you to buy.

so, what compensation do you owe me?
what price should i put on things?
you touch it, so you pay for it.
one charity shop shirt, three pounds please.

Sometimes face painting
another persona
becomes plain,
her exaggerated giggles
don't slouch right
upon the rose buds,
(Mama noted them first -
cherishing her eleven winter's
awaited delivery)
so readily pruned
of actuality and truthfulness
ravaging an inner shadow -
still Eight Christmases young
playing on her fruit's swing,
running dough fingers across
tangerine bars.

Before memories
commence their chorus,
pleading forgiveness and
forget-me nots,
'No Vacancies'
is rehung within
her windows
moss embroidered.

I remember the smell of summer rain
and how thunderstorms used to help me sleep when I was young.
I remember St. Patrick’s Day
and how the grass always seemed more green than any other day of the year.
I look at pictures of my family when I was eight
and it’s a harsh truth to admit
that I don’t remember much about my parents being together.

I remember having a sense of wonder in my childhood
that now I see was so precious and rare.
If we could all have that astonishment at the little things in life as adults
the world would be a much happier place.

Colors are no longer as vibrant.
I’ve started to look into the darkest corners of my mind
and the world to find new miracles and beautiful tragedies.

Christmas used to mean love, family and comfort.
Sleeping underneath the tree, the smell of pine needles would lull me.
Nowadays, gin is as close as I get from January to November.
With each sip, it’s the bitter taste of Christmases past
and the ripe, sweet smell of nostalgia.

People walk into my life through many doors and exit unexpectedly as well.
I’m in a forest, it all looks the same.
I turn at every tree with moss
Desperately searching for something new
and the hardest part is always searching
Never knowing which path leads to demise.

The friends that I keep are the ones I hold close
Are the good ones that stick through the depths of it all.
I remember the smell of my mother’s perfume
Yet the sound of her voice becomes more distant with each passing month and year.

Saturday morning cartoons used to be enough.
This wine is my blood and my blood has boiled out.

How to define pain and how to escape the wreckage?
I used to believe that time heals but the opposite has proven itself to be true.
The more details become unclear and fuzzy,
the sharper the knife becomes.
The more it hurts with passing days.  

I once heard that mourning is like being inside of a snow globe with flurries with slick, stealthy blades that sometimes float by and sometimes cut deep with no warning.
Time sharpens the daggers and that is a truth that is time(less).
Trust meant the world and gullibility was not a death sentence.
As we age, we find new ways to cope. We get by.

My dreams have been vivid and coated in a melancholy feeling
that I can’t break no matter how hard I try.
Woken up by the drunken calls of lush fools in the grass outside of my window,
I close my eyes and try to slip back into sleep.
Meeting failure, the clock taunts by the second
Synced with the laughter of the people outside, surrounded by friends.

Some say the glass is half full, some half empty.
I say the glass is being poured to the brim, on tap.
I take comfort in the solitude I used to curse in the early hours when slumber never came.

I have to stop the thoughts of you
running around my head
I've no escape from their tantrums
they're reminders of hurtful things I've said
they're a look back into the places
where we lived and loved but fought
they're whispers of broken christmases
and looks at presents I never bought
they're kisses I never got from you
because I never made it home
overdosed on the night's escape
a rotted king, a hospital throne
they're the things that forever haunt me
following my footsteps back to the bar
they're the pain I've cause in everyone
in causing things to be the ways they are


hate me away
take back all I've borrowed
hate me because I betray
please hate away your sorrow
hate me for what I've taken and can't repay
despise my every sad tomorrow

hate me in ways that let you free from me
it's the only way I can ever give you peace  


I have to stop the days I sadden you
I have to **** the way I make it true
that no matter what I promise
my actions won't prove a love for you
I've been without so much for so long
that I should appreciate all you have to give
I should've cherished your soft presence
in every day since, that I have lived
but I never put you above myself
I never helped or held you up so high
now the only way I affect you
is with a commitment that makes you cry
you always fully forgave me
for all the crimes that I'd commit
now it's you I have to protect
In asking your heart only for this split

hate me away
take back all I've stolen
hate me for the foul days
that could have shined and been golden
hate me for my every terrible display
despise me deeply, hate my emotions

hate me in ways that let you free from me
it's the only way
I
can ever give you peace

You kissed her
and I cried.

At first, every tear was a memory.
That time at that party,
Missing buses to stay late,
Meeting the family, birthdays, Christmas,
Endless evenings in the garden,
Planes, trains and automobiles,
A Canadian summer,
The four of us, together.

Until that night when you stopped being you
And became 'him'.

Then, each tear was a plan we'd made.
Christmases, holidays in the Rockies,
A life abroad, living in the street you'd build.
A wedding.

You didn't notice I was crying.
You kissed her again and laughed.
The same way you kissed my sister
And laughed at our friend's jokes.

I willed you to look at me,
To ask why, so I could tell you:
I cried because
I miss you.

a romance stronger than *** egos not
ever known just a sweet touch of afar and
birthdays and christmases
keeping in touch through the
long distance fog of so many years
she makes cakes I taste
by her descriptions
only
we fuss
like we live together
and we have never touched
I told her my secrets she absorbed
and I held her through some dark times
in absentia just my voice
she cried on my virtual shoulder
I loved her so many times
in my imagination
we have made love so many times
by words
that's my muse

After too many years of mom’s psychiatric issues,
whose pendulum of unpredictable emotions swung
between fits of violent rage and victimized hatred,
I gave up the struggle many of us
try and fail to endure.
Some people who love the insane
fall into the pit of personal torment,
an anxiety or depression of inner madness.
Others choose eye for an eye revenge.
Headlines of such retaliation steam over social media:
‘Wife Murders Husband Over Cold Turkey Complaint’
I made the completely selfish choice of maternal divorce,
to spend Christmas with a neighbor friend
who had endured much of the same abuses
and learned the same lessons years earlier.

Ana and I spent several merry Christmases
at one of those all you can eat seafood buffet joints.
The restaurant was simply a massive room.
A trough ran the 100 feet length of the back wall,
where the cattle lined up to feed.

Each year, we looked forward to our glorious feast,
not for the quality of the food, but the friendship
and the king crab legs neither of us could afford
any other time of the year.

We’d trade laughs and stories of the year.
We reminisced about friends and family passed on.
For 2 or 3 hours on a cold winter’s night,
there was no poverty, no family, no hardship,
no greed, no fuss…only laughs.
Except for the year I asked myself,
‘What would Jesus do?’

Standing in the long, sweaty buffet line,
a mumbling buzzed about a **** up front
taking too many crab legs.
Even though the restaurant claimed unlimited portions,
in reality, the kitchen workers played a good game,
only filling the large metal bin every 30 minutes.
The unwritten rule among buffet veterans
is to take 5 or 6 crab legs and leave some
for the others behind you.
The poor must look out for each other
because we all **** well know
rich ******* only care about themselves.

After a couple minutes of the crowd grumbling,
a heavyset woman in a moo-moo screamed,
‘Look at that guy! Look at his plate!’
The slicked-hair office drone the moo-moo pointed to
confidently strode past the hungry patrons
in his business casual golf shirt and khakis.
In one hand, he balanced a plate stacked
with at least 20 crab legs.
His other hand carried a cereal-sized bowl of butter.
The apparent jeers of shame from my fellow wretches,
whose bellies would go empty for another half hour
didn’t affect this guy’s silent march,
his corporate attitude to loot, to conquer.

I stepped out of line in the guy’s path.
‘What the are you doing?’ I said.
‘It’s a free country.’
He tried to squeeze around me, pressing his hip
against the orange chicken buffet station.
I moved to block him again.
‘Free for you, but no one else, huh?’
‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Just move.’

His empirical entitlement inspired me to perform
a little Christmas justice.
With both hands, I lunged for the man’s plate
and wrapped both hands around all but four crab legs.
‘What the hell, buddy?’ he shouted.
The guy had become a moneychanger in our temple.
‘Do something,’ I said.
A woman in line looked at me, her eyes wide, startled.
I handed her a crab leg.
The coward ran his mouth in an emasculated mumble,
but skulked back to his table.
I then walked down the line,
handing each of my fellow diners a single crab leg.
Old men formed expressions of confusion,
Young mothers and fathers laughed.
Children pointed their single crab legs to the ceiling
in a show of solidarity to the cause,
victory against a great evil.

A short Asian man approached me in line.
‘You must leave,’ he said in broken English.
‘But I paid for the buffet.’
‘No troublemakers. You go.’

I’d become a scourge to the Roman power structure,
an immoral bandit of Nazareth.
Being bad never felt so good.
After all, one can remove the boy from madness,
but without intense psychiatric treatment,
one rarely removes madness from the boy.
Ana wasn’t happy that we missed our annual feast.
I drove us home quietly content.
Another Christmas celebrated.

Chestnuts roasting by an open fire
Stories gather round to tell
I almost sat too close to it
And roasted mine as well

Away in a manger
No crib for a bed
All the nice hay
Smells of ***** instead

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
But if Santa's eyeing up your chimney
Send him on his way

I'm dreaming of a quiet Christmas
With every panic out of sight
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be just right

When I say that you were a wonderful mother and person, I'm being sincere.
The memory of the last Christmas that we shared is something I hold dear.
We spent many Christmases together but we won't be able to do it again.
We'll spend Christmases together in Heaven in the future but I don't know when.
Back in 2012, I gave you and Dad two presents each on Christmas Eve.
You passed away less than three months later and it was hard to believe.
I didn't realize just how sick that you were.
Your death was painful and hard to endure.
If I'd known that the Christmas of 2012 would be our last Christmas, I would've appreciated it more.
I will always appreciate and cherish the final Christmas we shared and all of the Christmases before.
You and Dad are both gone and I can't spend another Christmas with either of you.
I want to wish you and Dad a Merry Christmas because it's the proper thing to do.

I started writing in second grade and couldn’t spell, but
I tried to be honest about how I felt that
the world seemed just a little too unfair to
consider God
really had the best penmanship.

Because etched concrete contains my family picture, now.
And a day won’t pass where you don’t hear how
somewhere else someone else is just like you but
also just a little worse off.

I felt it first in the floorboards
as voices gave a steam-engines warning.

The wrinkles on this page weren’t necessarily acquired over time
But through frustration from lies and
that day someone said to you things were just fine
when
I felt the splinters forming in my spine, digging-

I was holding
on to rotten
ply-wood, cracking
Fingers
Nails
Digging-
Breaking.

The vacant house now has a yard full of dandelions
but I hold my breath

as I force a poem
from rigor mortised fingers:

What doesn’t **** you
Will only leave you

It is every young boys Christmas wish
to have a train beneath the tree
It is every young boys Christmas wish
But it is not a wish of me
To wake up near the fire
To feel the heat there by your side
It's not a Christmas wish of mine
It's not a wish that I've inside
I have a tree I decorate
It's a small one, but it's there
It's a bit beat up and tattered
It's been moved around it's share
I don't have a christmas stocking
You see, it just would not hold what I need
For my gift this Christmas season
Is to rid the world of greed
I'm one of the unfortunate
I have no place to go
But, I still like it at Christmas
When we get a little snow
I sleep inside at the mission
When the weather is real brisk
But, most times I do alright
Though at times, it is a risk
I used to have the visions
Of the Christmases that passed
But, with what I drink to keep me warm
The visions seldom last
I remember one good Christmas
We had turkey, and good wine
I'm not sure what year exactly
I think it was in '89
I used to have the wish list
Of every single boy
I wanted things at Christmas
I wanted every single toy
But at Christmas, every young boy
Wants that train, he wishes hard
But, I see a train around me
You see, I live in the train yard
The wish of every young boy
I see it 'round my tree
It's a real one that surrounds us
And I see it around me
I'm homeless and love Christmas
No matter what you think
I wish you Merry Christmas
Can you help me with a drink?
A fire, yes I've got one
The train, I've got a real one too
I just can't remember as many Christmas'
As I know I used to do

The money I'm saving on Christmas this year
will be incredibly useful for buying more beer
I'm not buying presents for family and friends
But this festive season I will be making amends

I'll never shop early for presents to give
I swear on my mother, for as long as I live
For while looking for boxes and our Christmas tree
I found boxes of presents from seventy three

All wrapped up and labelled in a box all alone
Hidden by an old blanket that was haphazardly thrown
Beside it, more presents from around eighty four
And as I kept on searching I found many more

There were presents for Grandad, who is now pushing daisies
And a few for Aunt Marg, who we all know was crazy
Gifts for the children, who now have kids of their own
In fact almost all are for children who've grown

I found a few that were given from Santa himself
And a few for my husband on an old wooden shelf
All wrapped up and labelled and dusty as well
I'd febreeze them downstairs to get rid of the smell

I promise from now, I will write down what I hide
And I'll draw a small map to use as a guide
I can't wait now for Christmas to see what we've got
From all the Christmases past, and the gifts I forgot!

I'm going through old desk drawers.
Changing rooms, moving down to the basement.

I must finally be a twentynothing after all these years.

I'm going through old cards,
Things I never had the heart to throw away.
My mom calls me a pack rat,
Says I'm a hoarder.

Maybe she's right,
But I still can't fault myself.
I pack away memories, hoard treasures of information and sentiment.

The base layer of sediment for my being.

In one drawer I find an old model airplane,
From an erector set when I was young.
I remember building it with my dad--
The propellor still turns.

How could I throw it away?

Even now, I think I'll keep it.
And look on it, some years hence,
And remember, as I do now.

I have dozens and dozens of cards.
Birthdays, graduations, christmases, milestones, achievements.

In them I read emotion poured out,
Words too sappy for speech,
Too thick and viscous.

In cards they flow like fine wine,
Aged perfectly.

I have old poems,
Written seven years ago and more.
Hundreds and hundreds of them.

In them I see leaves of growth.

Old friends are enshrined within the ancient artifacts of these dark burial tombs;
I open them and reminisce fondly.

These things are proof that I was here,
That I existed,
More so than my bones could ever be.

They show a person, a being--
A life.

Inanimate objects are no less alive than we, dear friend.

They are endowed with our spirit,
And their memories will long outlast our corporeal selves.

Pack away your memories,
Hold them close.

They are not trash,
Despite whatever your mom might say.

It sits expectantly on the peg in the dim hallway
just above the miniature blackberry stained walking cane,
waiting to be pulled over that wonderful head
reigning-in errant silver, bushy brows framed.

In the pub in a cloud of smoke,
a pint of beer next to half a Guinness,
just up the road from a market stall
where it waited
A million Christmases ago.

Hide and seek,
bobbing along the top of the untrimmed hedge.
Coming or going – no difference
happiness wherever it goes.

Straining against the South Westerly
soaked in ocean rain
longs for the shoulder-carry from the beach and silly songs
sweat pouring, Friday fish and chips, tea in the ***
Radio 4, crosswords and roasts.

Jumps back on the ketamine and the *******
and stands in alleyways and lanes
and forgets why the stars sit and the moon stands;
who fights demons with hairdryers and backward hats.

And it’s okay to look like your Dad you never knew,
in glances through the wood would only a few see the resemblance,
but similar hair won’t make up for lost Christmases
and days away at rain safari parks.

You’ll have to leave the fox hole through the brambles
at some point in the future,
so get scratched now and bleed a little sigh
of relief,
one that you’ve broken the tie and loosened the knot
and show us all that you’re out of your cot.

All those decorations from last season
on your door,
they won't help your fading memories
to last.
Let's admit that we're all ghosts in waiting.
     Knock one back with me.
We can rattle our chains to Christmases past.

Tally up.
Count the sum.
See, I've got a clever face.
But I ain't no plastic monkey on your dashboard.
'Cuz I've done my share of sinning
and I've told my share of lies.
But this heart's built ******* tough like a Ford.

Come again
to the ball.
We can bring along our masks.
We can hide our pretty faces' ugly creases.
We can laugh. We can dance.
We can pretend we're still young.
But we can't deny our dents.
          Not tonight.

No, I won't deny my dents--Not tonight.

Out the door,
night is cold.
Let the band begin again.
Doubt me now, but I am only getting warmed up.
Though you've done your share of dancing,
you're not really wanting out.
Just like me: you never like an empty cup.

Tally up.
Count the sum.
I might be deaf, blind and dumb.
I ain't like the ******* monkeys on your dashboard.
I'm just a ghost in ***** sheets
and I have made my share of beds
and I believe I'll ******* sleep fine tonight.

And you should try and sleep fine tonight.

Well, all those pretty lights, strung up
last season on your door,
they won't help your fading fortitude to last.
Let's confess that we're just ghosts in waiting.
          One more dance with me.
We can haunt this town and recall Christmas past.

Her voice when she whispers
Brings me back to childhood
Christmases, when shaking a
Present revealed the gut-tingling
Sound of LEGO inside.

Hey honey what your drinking?

Here have some wine , here comes the whisky

Did I just taste ***?

Im preety sure that was a white liquor shot

O man nice bottle opener

Lets have a beer

O man I love you guys

Whisky shots

Ill just have a glass of ***

STOPPPP

**** hits

O is that a joint?

Sleep ,

Sleep

2 hours later

Is that a

Black label !!! in the counter  AHHH

Im a bad colombian

Dad is stillgoing

I feel like throwing up

Colombian Christmases

Morning hangovers

Wake and bake joints

i grieve the girl in the summer dress in late may,
i grieve the mourning doves,
i grieve the ice lolly stained teeth and the way the sun was hotter in 2005,
i grieve the dew on the grass that stuck to paddling pool legs.

i attended the funeral of a little girl
when i decided to no longer be one.
i attended the funeral of summer
sometime last november, a little
closed casket affair for something i had to freeze
in the morgue before i was ready to let go.

i mourn the tired christmases and birthdays
and the excitement of the night before.
i mourn clothes set out on bedroom floors
and perfectly-made outfits for school trips.
i mourn the entirety of primary school
and wonder if the rainbow fish works a corporate job now.

i lost my faith somewhere between the pews
of my holy communion, but i got a pretty
green set of rosary beads and a bouncy castle
and an episode of doctor who so terrifying
that i made my eldest sister sleep in my room.
i lost my other sister, with whom i talk to now on tired
christmases and birthdays, just after
she spent all afternoon completing game achievements
that my young hands and daylight-savings-attention-span
couldn’t achieve by themselves.

when i was younger, i was smaller
but the stars were closer.
when i was younger, i was barriered in suncream
and each swimming pool at a caravan resort
was the ocean in a friendly disguise.
when i was younger, i lived
a lunchables life with soft serve ice cream for dessert
every day, and it was far too beautiful
to be beautiful in anything but hindsight.

now, i check myself for wrinkles;
it’s the only time i can look in the mirror.
sometimes i see her, five or seventeen,
and i say “that’s my girl.”
i cannot let her know of the mourning that will come.
i cannot let her claim me as her future
but i will hold her soft, small palms
and pretend that i am doing the leading.

I have some good memories of you
From when I was younger.

I remember the times
You'd bring me fishing,
You taught me how to cast.
I'd always hoped to catch
A fish as big as a shark.


I remember how you'd
Always make me laugh.
Especially when you'd start
Laughing really hard because
Your laugh is contagious.

I remember being called
"Daddy's little girl" because
I'd always wanna be with you.

And I remember wanting to go to
The bar with you when you went.

The bar,
Where you'd go to drink
And occasionally smoke cigarettes with friends.


I didn't understand it back then.


But now,
I have new memories of you.


I remember the times where
I was terrified to die
While you were behind the wheel.
When you accelerated faster on the highway,
I'd laugh in fear as I held in the tears
And prayed to God to get home safe.
Then you'd swerve.
Sometimes purposely for fun,
Sometimes just because you're drunk.


I remember the time
You fell backwards onto the floor
Because you were so drunk
That you couldn't even keep your balance.
You could've fallen down the stairs
Which was just in the other direction.
I could've lost you that day.


I remember the time you
Smoked **** inside a friends car outside the bar
During my confirmation party last year.


I remember those two Christmases
And those two birthdays that
You ruined for me two years in a row.


I remember the time when
You blurted out to my godfather that
I had cut and starved myself as if it were a news story.
Did you ever stop and think that
Maybe you're part of the reason why I did it?


I remember the time
You grabbed a trash bag and
Started to put all your clothes in it
While threatening to leave.
But It's like you're never there anyways
So what's the difference?


Then last night you said something to me
That tore my heart into pieces as if it were paper.
You were mad at Mom for something
That was most likely your fault.
You said,
“I'm gonna save up all my money
And to hell with her!”


Then I did the same thing as always.
Go into my room.
Close the door and lock it.
Turn up the music.
And cry.


Sometimes I’d wish I was a child again
Just so I wouldn't be able to understand,
So it wouldn't hurt as bad.


You know,
You said you'd die at 40 but look, you're 41.
So maybe that's God giving you a chance to change.
But God has given you too many chances,
I have given you too many chances,
We have all given you way too many chances.


A part of me wants you to know that I wrote this
So you could maybe realise how much it hurts.
But the other part of me knows that
You'll just look away and laugh
Like it doesn't mean anything.


Just like you always do.


-Cynthia Medeiros

All our Christmases.

Standing at the window when the snow falls,
Feeling the coldness seep in
As the ice builds up on the ledges
It is Christmas Day.
The street is white tracks and on hedges
Peaks gather like our festive cake.
Under the window laid out in names
Are the unopened presents.
The fur tree, tallest ever,
Lights the room with its fairy bulbs.
Robins and plastic angels twirl in the heat.
I wear my cream jumper and tartan skirt
To begin the day.

Love Mary ***

This year has been... So hard. It's been so ******* hard. There were times when I didn't know if I would make it. Times when I didn't think I had it in me to keep going and going after what I want and what I need, when they're always such long shots. Such dreams. Such ambitious dreams... I wanted to quit so many times. When **** left, I wanted to quit. I wanted to crawl under the blankets and stop being. I spent 3 days on Angela's couch after that night. I can never sleep in my own bed when I am truly broken down. I lose my home when I am raw inside. Couches, empty rooms, it doesn't matter where I hide but it can't be where I live. I wonder why that is. She couldn't have picked a worse time to tell me she loved me as much as I loved her and that it didn't matter. And then you... you were off in another world, off in another country finding yourself and your footing and everyone but me. You stopped answering my How Are You's. You didn't tell me happy birthday. Neither did ****. That was the first time I realized why holidays are the hardest for people who are sad. If you love someone and you are waiting for them to forgive you for being who you are, birthdays, Christmases, every holiday becomes a ticking clock: She has to say something. Will she say something? Will she really ignore me TODAY? Today, when the person who hated me most in high school said "Happy Birthday!! :D" on my wall on facebook? Today, when even my neighbor who grumbles about us being too loud grumbled a Merry Christmas? It becomes an agony when you realize that the answer is yes long before the day is over. Then you have to watch the hours tick by, trying not to hope, and by the end of it you just want it to be over, you don't even care anymore- you just want her not to have a reason to speak to you again, so that it won't mean QUITE so much that she is silent.
I had a lot of special days like that this year.
I wanted to quit when they told me I was small. When they told me I was quiet and bland, like vanilla icecream. The beast that lives behind my ribcage shook the bars that day and howled. (I spent a lot of time with it this year. We still hate each other, but we have uneasily realized that we are all we have.) That was the day I truly broke. **** was gone. You were gone. And the only thing I had to truly count on was suddenly in question. It was now or never, it was be better than your best, and I was barely hanging on. It was be a hundred and ten percent, when the past few months had whittled me down to a shadow of a person who barely remembered what it was to be fifty. It was push harder than you've ever pushed at the moment you are about to collapse and you thought you were going to be able to rest.
Those days made me. I hate that they made me. I hate that the biggest parts of me come from the days that eviscerated me, but they do.
I wanted to quit when **** came back and saw what I'd become. "You're wearing fake eyelashes?" she said, because she always did notice any weakness. She didn't say she saw my sunken cheeks, and the fire behind my eyes that meant I was afraid to die. "PROMISE ME you'll stay this time." I said, and I grabbed her shoulders. "But only if you mean it."
"I promise." she said.
She didn't mean it.
I knew, though. Somehow I knew that the girl I loved had left her behind, a changeling, a stranger. I tried to believe, but when she left the shock was only surface: I was too tired to be rocked to the core.
Then came the days when I truly didn't have a plan. I spent a few weeks on the couch. Anyone who reads this will not have seen me with ***** hair, in week old clothes, skinny and sleeping all the time. I make sure they never see. But for a few weeks, I had no one to pretend for and no reason to pretend and no reason to live. I only knew I WANTED to. Even then, from the couch, with my show babbling in the background, I thought, "There's gotta be something. A reason will come. I just have to wait." And a reason did come. It wasn't a very good reason, but it didn't have to be: Reasons to live are not really the reasons we live. The truth is that if you want to live, you will FIND a reason, every time. You will create one. My reason didn't mean a thing in the details. All it meant was that I was ready to rejoin the world, and live again.
I spent a lot of the in between months living on the surface of myself, just getting my feet wet. I went to work. They didn't know me there. Didn't ask. I liked that, it was simple. I waited tables, I cleaned up, and if I quietly did what I did, nobody bothered me. The biggest thing I could **** up was somebody's lunch. It was comforting. I chatted with customers as if I wasn't who I was. I was their smiling waitress with her hand on her hip, a hot *** of coffee, and a clever quip. That was a part of learning to live again, too. It was hard to stand there all day and listen to the radio. Memories would hit me and I would be unable to run away from them the way I could elsewhere. I learned to breathe through the pain, and discovered that it became muscle memory to endure it. It was almost easy by the end. The only deep thing I did with this time was to read Girl, Interrupted. As with most life changing books, I hadn't thought much of picking it up. I hadn't expected it to change me. But reading it, I could have wrote it myself. I knew how she felt, every moment, and the things she said stuck with me, stuck to me- the raw wounds that were still healing  inside me scarred around her words.
Then came the reckless stage. I was waking up. I began to listen to music again. I began to drive without knowing where I was going. I began to make choices just to see if they'd jar me enough to snap me back to my old self. They didn't. I didn't find myself again until just before school started.
Poor Giles (my car, the car that saved my life) was the cost of it. A rainy night, a loud song, and too much grief. Things really do slow down when you crash, you know. I thought they just did that in movies to be dramatic, but they don't, it's real. When I went off the road I knew I'd lost control. My mind was way ahead of me. My body wasn't in the place I thought it should be, and I remember distinctly but calmly wondering why it wouldn't listen to me and do what I wanted (it was, in fact, being thrown around by the force of the crash, and the signals from my brain saying "Move your arm!" couldn't compete with whiplash.) I woke up with the car crunched against a tree, on the driver's side, and the frame 6 inches from my face.
I didn't feel anything.
My body cried and shook as they strapped me to a stretcher, but inside I wasn't in control. I was sitting back quizzically. The moment they got me out of the car I knew I was unhurt. They cut off my clothes. My favorite bra was another casualty of that day. Cut right in half- the leopard bra I wore in the first scene I ever did in front of the UConn faculty for midterms last year. While they were wheeling me from test to test, I wondered if that was somehow symbolic. Flash forward to being in bed in a tiny room, a doctor giving me back my bellybutton ring, me asking where the pentagram necklace that **** gave me the night we met was, getting it back, putting it on. The IV in my arm was cold. I hate IVs. My mom cried, and I cried, but I still wasn't scared or sad. I cried because tears came out. It was a surreal experience, crying like that.
I didn't wake up fully from my brokenness until the nurse came in and said, "I'm so sorry, but we need your room. I'm going to have to put you in the hall." I shrugged, and they stuck me in the hall just outside. I watched them wheel a bedraggled looking man in. He was muttering. He reminded me of my uncle, the alcoholic, the one who had died the previous fall. I had a hunch that they probably had a lot in common. Interest piqued, I eavesdropped as they bustled around and talked to him. He had tried to **** himself.
That was when I woke up. I didn't really know it, but that was the moment. It was the first moment in months that I remembered my real reason. I asked my mother for a piece of paper to draw on, and she dug in her purse to find it. Ten minutes later I faked having to go to the bathroom so they'd unhook me from my tubes. I had a feeling my mother would think it improper if I told the truth. Before she could object, I slipped into his room, and handed him the paper. I said, "I made this for you. I hope you feel better." I wish I remembered exactly what I'd written. It was a simple little note and a doodle of a rose, and it said that he mattered, and that I cared about him. I got back in bed, sheepish, and my mom was as nervous about my infringement on someone else's life as I'd guessed she'd be. Five minutes later, though, the nurse came over with a piece of torn paper. He had written back to me. His handwriting was shaky and simple, like a child. I have that note hung up in my bedroom at home. He said, "You have touched my heart. Thank you! I will keep your rose in my heart. This is a life changing moment for me... Thank you!" I wondered if there was a plan, then. I wondered if all of that, the sadness, the crash, everything, had led me to be in that hospital and say something to that man that changed his life. And maybe it didn't change at all, I don't know. But I know that that moment changed me.
Back at school, I had a few blissful moments with you. A few nights of hand holding, a few beautiful kisses. I slowly taught myself not to run from you when I felt the gravity of my love separate me by the molecule. I found that I did have the courage it took to be in your arms, and that is when you lost the courage to hold me. Still, I'd take all of my grief and more for one moment with you, and I'll keep you in my heart till the day I die, whether or not you stick around.
In class, I was the first to break. To cry. Over months, I cracked open and a lot of the tears that fell were very old, and scalding. I hadn't known I was suffering until the cracks in me were widened and focused on. One day after a particularly raw moment, I walked across the street to the tattoo parlor. I didn't stop, I didn't think, and I got a tattoo that very moment. My butterfly, on my shoulder, to remind me that changing hurts, growing hurts. I loved how much it hurt. (Nobody said I was recovered fully.)
Suddenly then there was a choice before me. An opportunity and a challenge. Do something to make them remember why they chose you. Fight. Win. I dug deep. I thought, what can I say that I mutter to myself in the shower when I am not thinking about anything? What words have stuck to me? I dug, and I found Susanna Kaysen again. At 3 in the morning I sat in a chair, in the dark, in the center of the bare rehearsal studio and tore myself open.
I found the girl who, this past summer, in the thick of everything, had called McClean and tried to get a bed. Who for a week had begged to be somebody else's problem. I called a hotline. I wasn't suicidal, but only because I don't have it in me, no matter how bad I feel. I called and got a voicemail. Desperate, I called UMASS Memorial. I remember they told me that if I wasn't a physical danger to myself or others they couldn't help me, and I remember this phrase tumbling out of my mouth before I could filter it, "Should I just go slit my wrists and call you right back, then?"
I had asked for help, and the answer, resoundingly, was no. And so I spent those weeks on the couch, and then I got up and dealt with the fallout. There was no other way.
I found her and I invited her to say something. And what came out was... The biggest ******* to the things that had beaten me down those past months. I kept the lights off. I put on Bleed Like Me and danced without looking where I was going. I held myself to the chair and tried to escape. I screamed into a pillow until no sound came out. And I found Susanna Kaysen. And I freed the part of me that wanted to talk with all those wiser than thou gods who toyed with the thread of my fate, teasing it with blades- I found **** this. **** being hurt. **** being broken. **** being judged. **** anyone who looked at me and thought they knew what was inside, because Susanna was inside, no, someone different, even, than her- someone, something, angry and wild and powerful and dangerous, and she laughed, and I laughed, and we began to plan just how to say "**** this."
I spent a night with you, during that time. You held my hands. You said they were beautiful. You told me about yourself. You kissed me. You wrote, "Galaxies" on my thumb. I didn't write it on my ribs until I was sure that I'd want it there whether or not I was mad at you. I didn't have long to wait- you ran away again, and I tried to love you anyway, and I succeeded. I still try. I still succeed. It's not getting much easier, but if I know one thing it's that if I
Just
Don't
Give
Up
SOMETHING will happen. Something will come to me. If I know one thing it's that I can keep going even when I have no reason to, even when I have no fuel, even when I am utterly empty. If I just take the next step, and the next, one by one, I will end up SOMEWHERE new, and I will find SOMETHING to love. That is what I learned this year. By all accounts.... this year kind of ******. Although I had scattered moments of utter joy, I had long, smudged months of misery. But having gone through it, I am almost nostalgic. Because it proved to me, even more, that I am not fragile. I'm emotional, I'm intense, I'm unstable, but ******, I am NOT fragile. Like iron being smited, I went through the fire, I was hit over and over in my weakest places, but... in the end I have emerged, and I am not gone. And I am not fragile. Welcome, 2015.

I've had trouble wrapping Christmas gifts;
it has always been your job to do this ***** work.
I work to get the Christmas bonus,
we do the shopping,
you do the wrapping.
Plain as day.

But you left me, and I had to do all the work by myself. And so
I made a list of steps in the new skill I have mastered:

1. Unroll the gift wrapper. Spread it. Cover all bases. Never adore the design and adornments; it will be ripped anyway.

2.  Put the gift in the middle of the paper. Estimate how much paper are you willing to save or spend and waste.

3. Tape the ends. Put tape wherever. Don't try to hide the tapes. Secrets are meant to be revealed anyway. TIP: The more you put tape, the uglier your gift wrap will be. You think tapes will mend loose ends but it will simply destroy the aesthetic value of your gift.

4. Fold and tape. Tape and fold. Design it however you like. Origami the **** out of it. It will be destroyed anyway.

5. Put the gift card. Write with your best handwriting. With a smile swathed on your face. Add a dash of artificiality. No matter what you put here, this will not merit anything; It will not be read anyway.

Four Christmases you have been wrapping those gifts. Now that I have
wrapped some this year, I'm pretty sure why you've left. Plain as day.

*PS Wait for the gift I am sending you over. I wrapped it just for you.