I won’t tell but I know why you don’t like the festive season-

It’s everyone asking, and wanting to know if you’re one thing or another, 

married or still living in the city-

And for as long as you remember, you always felt like there was nothing, in that room somewhere between your throat and your solar plexus- and there’s a door for every corridor that leads to it- and the worn out felt chair beside the fireplace is empty. And you wondered all those years that you were growing up if you could still make something of yourself-

And still today there are mornings when you can’t exactly tell- if the face in the mirror is yours, and those cracked lips are yours, and those eyes and the lines beneath them, and this life that runs as the water runs in the sink is your life- and you have to remember that in a couple of hours you’ll be all dressed up and out in the world and so caught up in something that you wouldn’t even think of asking- and no one would even think of asking-

But still you wondered all those years if anyone could tell, all those christmases, or new year’s days, they’d ask if you were one thing or another, and you could never say with any sort of certainty. And if they were left uneasy or frustrated with what answers you came up with, they never seemed to show it.