The Holiday Oddsee

The tree is still standing, but no one believes
Its lights flicker faintly like old memories
I pour two cups though there's only me
The radio whispers what used to be
There's perfume on the coat that I'll never clean
Ghosts dressed in ribbons haunt evergreen
Every carol cuts like an open wound
Every silence hums an old monsoon

And I wonder if joy was just borrowed time
If we dressed our sorrow and called it divine

This is the holiday oddsee
A road paved with what we used to feel
Where laughter turns to elegy
And warmth is something you rebuild
Still, I keep driving through the years
Through love, through loss, through souvenirs
Because even the pain, in its quiet decree
Becomes a kind of company

Midnight, and the snow looks like static on a screen
I see us in flashes tinsel, velvet, and in-between
We promised forever between blinking lights
But forever's a word that doesn't survive nights
There's no miracle, just endurance and grace
Learning to smile with salt on your face
Some gifts you lose, some stay unopened
Some hearts don't heal, they just stay golden

And maybe the ache is the only real thing
The echo that teaches our hearts to sing

This is the holiday oddsee
A cathedral built from memory
Where joy and grief share the same key
And love outlives its eulogy
Still, I light a flame for who I've been
For every ghost that I let in
Because even the pain, in its quiet decree
Becomes a kind of company

The season doesn't heal, it reminds
That time doesn't take, it rewinds
You find peace not in the shining tree
But in the shadows it lets you see

So here's to the ones who never returned
To lessons that froze before they burned
Here's to the silence that still hums our song
To finding we belonged all along
This holiday oddsee, cruel and kind
Leaves ashes, but also a light behind
Because even the ache, eternally
Is proof that we were meant to be