Reality Between Holidays

Adjustment…

Between Holidays Reality there are choices—
those strange drifting days
where time feels warped,
as if hung between stockings and resolutions
like a coat left on the wrong hook.
The air is thick with the aftertaste
of celebrations—
alcoholic hangovers pounding like bad weather,
and their ghostly, sober twins
that ache behind the eyes without a single drink.
Christmas lights blink uncertainly,
their colors dimming,
like actors unsure if the show is still running.

Some of us…

Here, reality settles in quietly at first,
then all at once—
a cold tide that seeps into the seams of the house.
Regret drips from the ceiling
like meltwater from icicles,
and anticipation for the new year
presses on the ribs
with the weight of an unopened letter.

Sadness moves through rooms
smelling faintly of pine and exhaustion,
and we carry tears
the way people carry breakable ornaments—
carefully, but always afraid they’ll fall.

Everyday wage earners…

Move through these days
like scattered constellations,
teachers grading the year behind them,
bartenders wiping down bars
as if the wood itself is tired;
nurses with shoes heavy as wet sand;
graphic designers tracing lines
that don’t feel like theirs;
actors questioning the script of their lives;
office workers staring at cubicles
that echo like empty stage sets.

Some feel stitched securely to their calling,
others feel frayed, threadbare,
whispering I need a change
into the chilled December air.

Professionals too…

One man, sinking into a Long Island train seat
as though gravity has singled him out,
lets his breath frost the window,
a blurred watercolor of his mood.
He dreads the return to work,
the gray repetition waiting for him
like a commuter he can’t avoid.

Then the ticket taker arrives,
walking the aisle with a buoyant ease,
his smile warm and honest,
a lantern in this winter tunnel of days.
He greets each passenger
with unpracticed joy,
the kind that can’t be faked.
The man feels his own gloom loosen,
like a knot gently undone.
Who am I to complain… get a grip, he thinks,
as the train hums forward
and something inside him shifts with it.