Holidays’ Lives;
wielded Butcher Knives;
are entities all their own, in our perverted
culture grown; for money’s high and golden throne.
But for me, they are only carving the stars out of the night sky;
slicing the shining moon from view; and hideously eviscerating the sun.

Holidays’ Lives;
polished Butcher Knives;
chisel my soul into piles of shavings;
cleave my heart in two halves; and dissect my
present life from my pasts'.  They sculpt my unwanted,
new life for me, and light it with phosphorescence so I must ever see.
They whittle my prior existence into extinction, dark and dank and musty moldy.

Holidays’ Lives;
whetted Butcher Knives;
like Christmas, birthdays, and Mother’s Day;
shaving me into slivers; piercing my mind with myriad red-hot
needle-holes, through which pour the thick blood-red memories of my lost;
swirling into each other until I cannot enter a church without crying;
I cannot enter a store without tears; I cannot find consolation
except in prayer, or cradled within my
loving husband’s arms.

Holidays.

(Am I ever going to be okay again?)