Tags
Christmas Intimacy, Deferred Presence, Disenchanted Hope, Domestic Nocturne, Emotional Self Reckoning, Epiphanic Realization, Existential Longing, Familial Confession, Generational Wounds, Hard Won Grace, Inner Ruination, Intergenerational Dialogue, Melancholic Introspection, Paternal Fallibility, Psychic Blind Spot, Quiet Redemption, Relational Estrangement, Sacred Ordinary, Temporal Regret, Unfulfilled Yearning
My daughter asked me by the fire’s glow,
“If granted just one wish this Christmas night,
What would you ask for?” And I said, “To know
The ache in me that never heals quite right.”
She laughed at me, still flushed from evening prayers,
“That’s not a proper wish! You’re wasting it!
Ask for a kingdom free of grown-up cares,
Or endless gold to spend as you see fit!”
I smiled and watched the embers twist and fade,
“I’ve had those wishes, child. I’ve begged before.
The gold went cold; the kingdom I had raised
Collapsed to ash. I don’t chase those anymore.”
She frowned and pulled her blanket to her chin,
“Then wish for love that never goes away,
For someone’s arms to always hold you in,
For words that mean exactly what they say.”
“I wished for that,” I told her, “long ago.
It came unbidden, warm and slow as rain.
I couldn’t simply let it be, and so
I held too tight, and turned it into pain.”
The fire sputtered. Shadows climbed the wall.
She whispered, “Wish for time to start anew,
To mend the cracks before the pieces fall,
To be the one you were before you grew.”
“I’ve had that wish. I got my fresh-swept slate.
But I was still just me—I walked the same
Worn roads back to the same old rusted gate.
A second chance can’t save you from your name.”
She paused. The logs shifted. Sparks rose and died.
“I wished for you once, did you know?” she said.
“I wished for you at breakfast. When I cried.
I wished for you to tuck me into bed.
To sit with me instead of pacing slow,
To hear me when I spoke, not just move on.
I didn’t wish for kingdoms, gold, or snow.
I wished for you. And you were always gone.”
I couldn’t speak. The frost crept up the glass.
“So what’s the point of wanting if you’ve tried
For everything, and watched it break or pass?
What’s left to want?” she asked. My throat went tight.
“That’s why I’d wish to know what I am missing—
The blind spot in my heart I cannot see,
The reason I’ve spent all these decades wishing
For everything except what’s here with me.”
Her eyes grew heavy. Soon she was asleep.
I watched her breathe. The fire asked nothing of me.
No wish could grant what only presence keeps.
I touched her hair. She was the gift. Just she.
Collapse of Industrial Civilization 