What Life Is

Holidays

The well wishes of Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays break me
The holidays do not turn out happy for people like me
People who replace breaks in a crushing routine with chaos in a new one
People who are bound to their bad luck
Christmas is not so joyous for those trapped at home
Where there is no warm invite
There are only eggshells to tread and broken hearts to step around
A break from the regular turns into tasks that were neglected
Feelings that were neglected may be so kind as to show themselves once more
Spending the break alone
Crying in solitude
Knowing that everyone is better off
Completing task after task in hopes that it is good enough
And then coming short every time
And realizing that it is not
The holidays are the hardest for people like me
We can not show our true colors
No matter how beautiful they may be
We have been convinced that they are wretched and ugly
So we hide
We spend day after day at home
Where our parents may flip a switch at any moment
Where anything can happen and 'anything' is usually bad
Those thoughts come back
The memories come back
Everything comes back to haunt us
And all we can do is sit and hope we can survive it this time
And all we know is that we doubt that we will