The feat of feeling Christmas for more than a moment had been so wonderful that the fleeting emotions he had of it since, he clung to, smothering them until they died by desperation. That morning, when he had been standing in line for coffee, a little girl waved goodbye to everyone in the store yelling, “Merry Christmas!” Her mother had laughed and the two of them left.

He had felt Christmas then, too, as though the wish “Merry Christmas” could transcend to a commandment and his spirit had quickly arranged itself to be, not happy, but merry. He caught the look on the man’s face in front of him, the dried wrinkled face that didn’t smile at the little girl and when catching his eye, didn’t smile at him either, though he had attempted one himself. The old man huffed and turned back to the line. The line. Something about standing in line for coffee in all its mediocrity obliterated merry to mundane. He was standing in a line getting coffee and no one cared that it was Christmas.

I am helpless

Bound, undone

I wish it were different

That I was someone

The time drizzles by

The clerk gives a sigh

And minute by minute

I slowly will die.