Tinsel That Learned To Bleed [Wraith]
Blood-red garland snakes along the hallway like a bad idea someone doubled down on,
looped too tight around the banister, choking the wood in glitter that looks sticky enough to sting,
cheap plastic trying to play artery, catching every flash from the tree lights and turning it into a low-grade threat,
like the house stopped pretending this was about joy and started dressing for the crime scene instead.
Every strand carries fingerprints from last year’s arguments,
from the “let’s not do gifts” lie that still ended in maxed-out cards and hollow thank-yous,
from the slammed doors that rattled the hooks in the drywall while you stood in the kitchen and tasted copper,
from the quiet, surgical silence that followed when everyone pretended to clean instead of explode.
Screams don’t echo here, they get recycled,
turned into laughter that reaches a little too high,
into holiday music cranked just loud enough to bury that electric pressure in everyone’s chest,
into clinking glasses that sound like teeth chattering behind polite smiles.
Down the hall, the tinsel trembles when the oven timer shrieks like a warning siren,
when a dropped dish shatters in the sink and someone says “it’s fine” in a way that proves it isn’t,
when the dog barks at the empty stairwell and refuses to go up alone,
staring over your shoulder at something that must be very amused.
The tree in the living room wears the same ugly sweater it did last year,
lights wrapped too tight, branches sagging under memory-heavy ornaments,
every little glass bauble a frozen replay:the year you were happy enough to forget where you hid the liquor,
the year you weren’t,
the year someone never came back and the lights felt about three watts dimmer for good.
Underneath, gifts crouch like traps wearing pretty paper,
bows tied with shaky hands at two in the morning,
labels that say “love” and mean “please don’t leave,”that say “hope you like it” and mean “I don’t know how to talk to you without paying for the right.”
The tinsel brushes those boxes like a conspirator,
leaving faint red glitter on cardboard corners,
marking each one like a warning tag from some department of emotional hazards that never got funded.
Down the corridor, stockings hang like stretched-out throats,
felt mouths gaping at nothing, waiting to be fed with sugar and guilt,
names stitched on in thread that matches the old bruises you never mention,
little shrines to the idea that surprises fix anything at all.
Someone hits play on the same old playlist,
the same crooners booming about warm fires and gentle hearts,
while the furnace clicks and growls like it’s swallowing one more year of resentment for the team,
while the vents carry whispers you never said out loud but somehow everyone hears anyway.
The tinsel over the doorway sways when the front door opens,
letting in cold air and relatives that smell like smoke and exhaustion,
coats come off in a rustle of fabric and stale perfume,
and the hallway closes around them like a throat trying to swallow something too sharp.
“Looks beautiful,” they say, and the house winces,
because beautiful has never felt so close to “don’t touch anything or it falls apart,”and the tinsel, tight and glinting, tries not to laugh as it sheds one glitter-flake into someone’s hairlike a tiny, shining blood clot.
In the dining room, candles pretend they’re romantic instead of flares,
wax dripping slowly down like hours you’ll never get back,
shadows wobbling across faces that look younger in your memory and older in your mirror,
and from the corner of your eye, the red garland seems to pulse in rhythm with your heartbeat.
Somewhere between grace and the first fork clattering,
between “good to see you” and “we should do this more” (you won’t),
the tinsel finally speaks, not with a voice but with a tightening,
a subtle squeeze along the banister, along the doorframe, along the picture hooks,
like the house itself is tired of being decorated and never healed.
By midnight the dishes are stacked like unpaid bills,
the trash bag swells with torn paper and broken packaging,
and the garland hangs a little lower, like it’s seen this ending too many times:the late-night confession to no one in specific,
the staredown with the tree,
the quiet muttered “next year will be different” that even your reflection doesn’t buy.
Everyone else is asleep or pretending,
the TV throws color over the empty room,
and you sit there with a drink going warm in your hand while the tinsel watches you back,
its fake-metal threads catching the light just enough to look wet.
The house groans, settling bones into winter,
pipes hiss, wind fingers the eaves,
and every glittering length of red along the walls looks suddenly honest—not festive, not sweet, not merry—just long, thin lines of proof that this season has teeth,
that not all garlands were meant to be gentle,
that some holidays hang themselves around your life and wait for you to notice.