Mute All The Merry Noise [Wreath]
My phone is facedown on the nightstand, humming like a trapped insect that learned how to read,
screen lighting up the wall in jumpy little pulses, like distant fireworks reflected on some tired bedroom ceiling no one bothered to repaint this year,
and I’m lying here under a crooked blanket, half dressed, half dead, half sugar cookie, half regret, wondering how there is anything left to say in a world that emailed “Happy holidays” at nine a.m. and hasn’t shut up since.
The group chat banners keep sliding in, stacked like drunk choir members elbowing for the front row,
each notification a tiny doorbell from a party I was invited to twenty times, declined nineteen, and still somehow have to walk through tomorrow in real shoes and clean breath,“Look at this ugly sweater,” someone sends along with a blurry photo of polyester sin,“Shots in the kitchen,” screams another, as if my liver hasn’t done enough negotiating for one decade,
three people typing, the bubbles marching in and out like they’re warming up backstage while my replies stay missing, a ghost that flat-out called in sick.
Every buzz carries its own specific flavor of chaos.
The Family Horde chat, crowned with a photo where everyone is blinking, has discovered memes,
so my pocket lights up with pixelated Santa twerking and glittery script that threatens joy like a hostage note.
Cousin drama spills out in long paragraphs, side commentary arrives in another thread,
and Aunt Somebody is sending inspirational snowman pictures with captions about believing in miracles while I’m just believing in melatonin and the healing power of doing absolutely nothing.
The Friends Who Still Go Out group is worse,
videos of clinking glasses, packed bars, countdown clocks ticking on huge screens,
someone filming their own face at midnight, shouting over the roar,“I miss you, you should be here,” they yell into the camera, eyes bright with liquor and leftover hope,
and the video lands on my pillow at 12:07,
with fireworks screaming behind them and my room lit only by the blue rectangle that keeps telling me I’m absent from my own life.
Even my coworkers have a chat now, branded with a cheery winter emoji,
and they are sending pictures of office potluck leftovers and the obligatory plate of beige food,“Can you believe we survived this year,” someone says,
as if survival came with a paid bonus instead of another badge of exhaustion pinned to a jacket that no longer fits the person I thought I was in January.
They want reaction gifs, laughing faces, thumbs raised,
but my fingers feel like they’re made of the same year as my brain,
fried, over-salted, brittle around the edges,
and my best honest reaction would just be a photo of me staring at the ceiling asking, “Now what.”
The phone keeps pushing, insisting, little bar of light in the corner of my eye,
like an overeager elf knocking on the door of my skull,
arms loaded with digital confetti and hot takes and inside jokes from three holidays ago that we keep dragging back out like an artificial tree with bent branches and missing bulbs,
because if we keep talking, maybe we can outrun the part where we admit we’re all tired in places that don’t have a name.
Sometimes I imagine the messages as small creatures that live inside the wiring of the house,
tiny goblins in ugly scarves racing down copper veins, banging on the inside of my phone glass,“Look at this baby picture, look at this cookie tray, look at this passive-aggressive comment from your mother disguised as concern,”each one gripping an emoji like a lantern,
each one begging for my attention like carolers at a door I don’t feel like opening because I’ve already given all my coins to other nights, other storms, other ghosts.
The fantasy version of me stands up,
cracks her neck, stretches, types some shining, balanced reply about loving you all, sorry I’m not there tonight,
attaches a cute selfie with decent lighting and no visible dishes in the background,
makes it look easy, thoughtful, polished,
like the highlight reel people keep posting of their lives with filters turned up and the mess cropped out.
The real me just stares at the notifications marching by and wonders how honest I’m allowed to be without setting off an alarm.
What I want to send is simple and ridiculous.
One message to every thread that says,“I love you, I swear I do, but my head feels like a mall parking lot after closing,
all echoes, dented carts, and lost mittens,
and right now the most I can manage is breathing slow and letting this blanket pretend it’s a shield.
Keep celebrating, keep yelling into the night,
I will meet you where the year is quieter and my smile doesn’t feel like a costume piece stapled to my teeth.”
But that kind of honesty would start more buzzing,
Are you okayWhat’s wrongCall meand tonight I don’t have the energy for follow-up questions,
no strength left to narrate my own exhaustion in a way that doesn’t sound like a cry for rescue,
so I let the bubbles rise and fall on their own while my thumbs stay still.
One group finally notices my digital silence and tags me like a missing person report,“Rusty, you alive,” appears next to a string of laughing faces and a sticker of some cartoon creature holding a sparkler.
I type “Yeah,” and erase it.
Type “Love you all, just wiped,” and erase that too.
Type nothing, instead press the button that silences the whole mess for eight blissful hours,
the little crossed-out bell icon appearing like a tattoo of mercy on the top of my screen.
The phone whines once in protest, last vibration running through the nightstand,
then quiet drops heavy and sweet in the room,
like snow over a battlefield,
like someone finally unplugged the speaker that was stuck looping ads for a party I’m not ready to attend.
Outside, the world still shines and shouts,
someone setting off unofficial fireworks, someone dragging their trash to the curb in slippers, someone stumbling home in a coat that cost more than their rent,
but in here the only sounds are the breath in my chest and the soft scrape of my thoughts slowing down to a walk,
no longer chased by a thousand tiny alerts insisting I participate in being alive correctly.
I roll onto my side, screen still glowing, muted icons frozen like sleeping fireflies,
and allow myself the luxury of caring in silence,
heart sending out a quiet pulse to each person through the dark,
no emojis, no read receipts,
just the stubborn little prayer that they’re okay and that I’m allowed to rest without being counted as missing.
At the edge of sleep, I picture my phone wrapped in a tiny blanket of its own,
all its buzzing demons pacified,
all its group chats tucked into their folders, gently snoring.
Tomorrow, I’ll scroll and laugh and catch up on the nonsense and the love,
I’ll send late replies with self-deprecating jokes and promise to do better.
Tonight, I choose this scandalous act of not answering,
this quiet rebellion where I matter even when I’m not typing,
this hush between the holidays where the loudest thing in the room is finally my own soft, stubborn heartbeat.