The Season Everyone Smiles Through
December arrives with its scripted cheer,
lights strung across streets and windows
decorations on doors and in yards
as if brightness alone could lift the heaviness
that settles this time of year.
I walk through stores where music insists
on joy I can’t find a way to feel,
its cheerfulness brushes against me
like a stranger who assumes we’re friends.
Everyone seems to be performing—
laughing a little too loudly,
talking about plans as though the season
still carries the magic it once did.
All around I see a hollow imitation—
ornaments hung because they always have been,
traditions kept out of habit rather than wonder.
I feel myself going through the motions,
as if the holiday is a play and I’m reciting lines
that no longer fit my mouth.
Sometimes I look at others
and wonder if they’re acting too,
if they have that same quiet thoughts,
that same suspicion that the season
has become something to endure
rather than celebrate.
But we all smile for photos,
wrap gifts and sing traditional songs,
and I can’t tell if I am the only one
who hears the silence beneath all the music.
I tell myself it’s just another year,
that I’ll step through it as I always do
like a doorway I didn’t choose—
but still must pass through—
hoping, without expecting,
that some small flicker might return
and I will feel real and alive again.
What's Missing?
In a crowded room, voices hum like bees,
words weaving around me, never through me.
I stand among others with a cup in my hand,
wondering how to enter a conversation
when nothing in me seems to match its flow.
Laughter rises, familiar and distant,
and I nod, smile, drift away in my mind—
a person among people, yet invisible—
hoping I at least look engaged
feeling the awkward quiet settle inside.
Written for my prompt at What's Going On? -- Lonely
