i might have seen salvation in the christmas lights

and when we carried cardboard christmas boxes from the attic, i thought / perhaps they were dust-ridden, but the gritty cloth rags in our calloused hands / cleaned our flesh and souls of year-long dust, too / a year sapped of colour trapped us so far in the grey / it took me to the moment i plugged in the lights / to pull me back to the

/ glow /

when one finds themself in the grey, it is too easy to frown / to let their head swim until the sickly sweet summer fades away / and here we are, december, and / i never thought plastic lights could make me cry tears of relief / red / glistening like rubies wet with winter rain / green / an echo of the thinly-spun pine needles clinging to our tree / white / scattered like a jester's tricks across our freshly awoken walls / and in our christmas lights i think / i might have seen

/ salvation /