Poems

Midnight, Mute Button Mischief [Wreath]Ten, nine, eight, the room chants loud and messy, half-drunk, half-dressed, cheeks flushed and glitter-streaked in cheap strings of light that flicker and threaten to quit, while I crouch by the entertainment center like a priest of plastic, praying to the couch gods for that cursed remote I somehow managed to […]

Mistletoe’s Little Crime [Wreath]The first sign that the night was going off script was not the spiked punch or the too-loud playlist or Aunt Sheryl arguing with a plastic reindeer about parking in the driveway,it was the mistletoe over the doorway shifting half an inch to the left like it had changed its mind mid-hang

Midnight Under a Champagne Confetti Sky [Wreath] The year is limping toward the finish line, drunk on headlines and late fees and unanswered texts,and the city pulls on sequins and sarcasm like armor, glitter smeared over dark circles and old regrets,every window throwing light into the cold night as if trying to bribe the dark

Midnight Vows on Crumpled Paper [Wreath]New Year’s Eve always arrives like a pushy salesman in glitter, leaning through the doorway with a grin that shows too many teeth and a clipboard full of promises you swore you’d stop signing,Yet there you are again, on a sagging couch with a plastic flute in one hand and

Midnight Bells Beneath the Snow [Wraith]On the edge of a town that looks wholesome in postcards and rotten up close under streetlight glare,Where the church steeple cuts the sky like a guilt-ridden finger pointing nowhere,There hangs a bell no priest will mention, bolted inside the stone throat higher than any prayer,Wrapped in chains still warm

Midnight Carols from Below [Wraith]Children roll into sleep like coins flicked down a bottomless well,clutching stuffed animals that already know better than to dream,while the night outside hangs heavy and wrong over the cul-de-sac lights,as if the whole sky has been dragged down a few inches too low just to hear them breathe.The house does

Ledger of Late December [Wreath]By the time the calendar limps to its last square and the coffee tastes like déjà vu and burnt toast,You catch yourself doing math on the couch in a shirt with some stranger’s company logo,Adding up the tiny wars you fought with yourself, the campaigns you abandoned,The little victories no one

Liturgy of the Cold Stuffing Raid [Wreath] The house has gone soft around the edges, lights dead, TV mumbling to itself in the other room like an exhausted drunk who fell asleep mid-plot twist,and the clock in the hallway clicks every second loud enough to call the dead back for one more round of small

Jingle Hell Choir At Midnight Mass [Wraith]They ring the bells down here with jawbones, chipped and wired to rusted chains that clank in offbeat measure over the pits,A hundred thousand skulls swing side to side above a molten plaza where the air tastes like pennies and old cigarettes.It is Christmas by their calendar, which only

Ink-Thin Smiles On Red Envelopes [Wraith]The first one lands on your doormat with that soft papery thud that sounds harmless, harmless the way a snowball does before you realize there is rock in the middle and ice on the crust,Red envelope, glitter shed in transit, faux gold edges pretending prosperity while your rent reminder curls