I don’t have an advent calendar this year

A notion I express to my mother with a slight laugh

It is of no real consequence besides,

I suppose,

growing older,

in that I mean,

to be who I once was not.

Christmas time is a reminder of that unwelcome change. 

The way my lungs don’t open to sing hymns as they once did;

as if emotion has cut off my oxygen.

How the lights are more fluorescent than warm;

more cold than comforting.

My new status as the only child;

as my siblings left, and with them any semblance of christmas.

I’ve heard it said that love doesn’t split, it multiples.

But that does not pardon the hole in my home.