No Receipt Needed

No tree.

​

No lights.

​

Nothing sweet left to mark the season,
no warmth to feed the cold.

​

Silence starves
without leaving hunger behind.

​

I learned to arrive alone,
explaining an absence
as if it were my own.

​

Gifts offered freely,
left unopened.

​

Not just the ones wrapped in paper.

 

I watched them go,
still wrapped,
into the donation bin.

​

The distance ever widening.

​

I offered myself the same way—
all of me,
believing love would be met
where it was offered.

​

I didn’t choose the silence.

​

I lived with it,
watched love wither.

​

No receipt needed.