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Things have been better, I must admit,
Than this year now fresh on the outs.
Things I could do – Things I should do –
But, instead, opted out of a route.
Since my year had been passive, to say the least,
As the luster of dreams fades to rust,
I can’t help but feel settled into a groove
Where escape is a “Try if you must.”
And I don’t feel I must, for two brisk years
Have been swelled to the brim with to-do’s.
Shows I should watch – Trips I could take-
Folks I might meet if I choose.
Only, I feel my time’s being wasted
When I head to the old day-to-day,
Not loving the work that bores me to tears
Where, without better prospects, I’ll stay.

And now, it is Christmas – the death of a year-
What more have I got to show
Than a swanky apartment on the 12th floor
And a Pachira refusing to grow?
I’ve not decorated, it would just make me mad
Since Christmas is a time to reflect
On the good you have done, the people you love –
Two things I admit I neglect.
With purpose, mind you – there is work to be done
In climbing up where I am now:
Sitting secure on this loveseat at the 12th floor,
Not a wrinkle of stress in my brow,
With a glass of Van Winkle lolling in hand
I glaze out into the night
Where the city sparkles far down beneath me
And laughter remains out of sight.
Down in Hyde Park, the Wonderland rages
With attractions and thrill rides galore
Whipped all about with fluffy fake snow –
A contrived and consumerist bore.

I lull towards the darkness of my silent abode –
Modern fortress to musty tradition –
When something fluttering outside my window
Magnetizes averted attentions.
Through soapy snow dissolving up into space
And the gleam of festive white light
Pierces beam from the heavens, alighting my floor,
To project a spine-chilling sight:
Fluttering past glass, ignoring the pane,
Real flakes fall from clear skies
And outline a form that’s not actually there
As it drifts down before my eyes,
The shape of a man, extending his hand,
Pointing directly at me
As the flakes fall around that absence in space
And I wonder: did I spike my own drink?
The figure’s finger turned to upturned palm
With human distaste mimetic
In how it swept its arm across my abode
And windily whispered, “Pathetic.”

The beam with the snow and the figure
Glided against my wounded expression
Towards me, hurling uncalled-for insults,
And leaving a bad first impression.
“First-impressions,” the snow blustered,
Reading these thoughts to my blush,
“Are my only impression. People like you
Insist on there being a rush.
As for pathetic, I speak of your quarters.
For when I look over each day
I expected a place more enticing,
Alluring, where you’d want to stay.
Since staying is all that you’ve done
Like the hare, napping halfway through,
Gluttoned by aimless objectives
And crippled by fruitless to-dos.”
As the figure turned to the window,
Framed by that crystalline night,
I leapt to my feet in defense
And forgot every sliver of fright.
“And who,” I fumed, “Are you
To insult me in my own home?”
“I am, that I’m not,” it replied, “But you can call me
The Ghost of Christmas Ne’er to Come.”

I smirked, “Like the three ghosts in Dickens? What have I done
To warrant a haunting tonight?
I have plenty of friends whom I treat very well
And still help strangers in spite.”
“I come not for others, but for you, yourself.
For what are these marks on your belt?
Can you name one face you’ve impacted for good?
Some rein in their memory you’ve held?
No, your deeds are fleeting, as is your life,
To be forgotten with the new dawn;
These lives you think give weight to your own
Anchor you down and float their way on.”
My grimace could not be denied,
But there was no comfort accepting the fact.
“Come with me,” said the spectre,
Extending its hand like a pact.
“I wish to show you some lives you could lead,
The people you chance to inspire,
The homes you could build, the glasses to fill,
The hearths by warm Christmas fire.”
I resented this Ghost, devaluing my life,
Clearing my mind but for this –
Yet by instinct, I guess, or a curious itch,
I clasped his existenceless hand and was whisked.

My vision was still a bit fuzzy
Fading into being with the beam
From the snowflakes fluttering ‘round me
And a vignette that seemed like a dream:
My girlfriend and I on the couch
In my apartment, still bare of decor,
The glare of a screen on our faces
And our faces lacking something more.
Those blank stares neither watching
Nor being present with the other
With thoughts far away or not at all there
While my thoughts the Ghost came to smother.
“You might think this the past or the present,
And it is – But also what’s coming.”
“And should this scare me somehow? We are both used
To a world that favors our numbing.”
“You are,” said the Ghost. “But is she?
For pretending there’s something in nothing
Proves harder with two unstable hearts involved
No matter if your spirit’s a tough thing.”
The vignette shifted, I faded out,
And in faded some other man
Along with a house decked out in tinsel
And red velvets across the whole span.
Then he wisped away, and in wisped I,
While she was replaced with another;
Over and over our two decks were shuffled,
A sweet Christmas scene ‘tween two lovers.

There was a connection, an intimacy
That went beyond feeling or reason –
The kind of closeness you only feel
Under amber lights of the season –
So whether we cuddled in fleece on the couch
Or sipped cocoa under the tree,
I knew so long as I followed this Ghost
My mind would not be free
“You are free,” sighed the Ghost, “To criticize
What you think is just an illusion
When you’ve let society dictate your standards
And set you into an angry confusion.
For misery is easy for mankind to find
In a world that determines must-haves
When trust and support are in short supply
And group-cope is better than halves.
For you are free in the group, flit from one to the next
In the search of someone who listens.
But, if everyone’s selfish, what good is a pair
Since one must forfeit their dominant position?”
During his lecture, I noticed something quite strange:
An ominous door just standing alone –
Not a pantry, a closet, a bathroom or study
But the filled frame all on its own.
I felt something dark, there, between the planks
While it lingered back in the shadows,
Overpowering whatever the Ghost meant to teach
With its wood etched grim as the gallows.

And then, we were gone! Poofed onto the next,
An office space decked out with cheer;
My place of work filled with baubles and treats
(Leeches on bonuses garnering leers).
But not in this scene. In this scene, we enjoyed it,
To share in the peppermint punch
While joyous carols set our moods high
And our low work kept us in crunch.
“Low work?” scoffed the Ghost.
“Never here, don’t you sense it?
At this job, you make lasting difference,
Not mere likes or an overblown profit.
But for people you serve, not you yourself;
You can name the how, why, and who.
And the ripple effect can be felt every year
When you were meant to be more than a Scrooge.”
“A Scrooge, you say?” I toppled the punch,
Shoved the nutcrackers all on their sides,
And shouted, “Tell me what’s actually wrong that I’ve done!
Why waste my time on this ride?”
I felt the Ghost then separate
As the beam shifted before me again –
Then I realized, I fit the shape perfectly
As if in my place he’d once been.
“The only injustice,” his cold reply,
“Is only to you in the end.
You may owe nothing to no one,
But, then, what is the worth of a man?
To serve his own pleasures is folly,
To serve someone else’s is bunk.
So while no real wrong you’ve committed,
Why is your mind in a mild-mannered funk?”
All the while, that tall cursed door
Cast its dark in the hall
‘Til the green and red lights were all muddied
And the smiles all around me appalled.

The beam enveloped once more
And I faded smack into a kitchen –
The complete Christmas Eve package before me
Where each family member would pitch in.
The feast on the table looked scrumptious
With its ham, pies, yams, casseroles –
And I saw at the head, the great father…
Why, I, me, myself, filled that role!
“You go too far, Ghost,” I murmured
As the Christmas scene played on in full
Of hearts that were glad at the table
And eyes sparkling wonder for Yule.
I watched as my children retired
Though anticipation kept them awake
For Santa’s sleigh on the rooftops
And the hope for the dreams he would make.
Christmas Day morn was just as exciting
As they’d stampede down to the tree
And unwrapped what they knew they’d be getting
Since they sat on that jolly saint’s knee.
These families shrank and they grew,
But the warmth always prevailed
And I do not deny I wished it were real
With my current state shrunken in scale.
It was hope, it was trust, in those children’s eyes
That hardened the scales in my own
‘Til I whirled ‘round to my kidnapper
And discovered — He took me back home.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Ne’er to Come,
Undefined by your present or past
But rather the exclusions once you seize a decision
And set forth on a future to last.
The life you divide into moments
Based on a purseful of your happiness
Is not something you tend to invest in
But spend ‘til you’re stuffed with excess.
Life is limited in its quantity
And quality shrinks day by day,
So seize on the chance to make it worthwhile
And ignore those excuses to stay.
Christmas is the time to take stock
And see all the lives that fill you
With purpose and wonder and love in a home
That’s not so devoid of value.
For half of what you do is not real
But desperately filling a hole
That you think dumping into accomplishes something
And stimulates you not to feel.”

With tears in my eyes, I blindly struck out
And that beam of light disappeared
With one last flutter of snow to my floor
And the sudden onslaught of fear.
Before me loomed the ominous door
Now clear in its starving intent
As it slowly creaked open to the void beyond
And the faux lives around me were rent
As shadowy tendrils clanking like chains
Clutched round my arms, waist and throat
To yank me into that yawning abyss
Where as if in oil I would float
And feel only one long longing forever,
Possible Christmases over and done –
And I knew him, the end that always is there:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

I awoke with a sweat on my side, on the floor, stiffened neck,
But otherwise filled with a spark
From clarity focusing what I must do
And some hints that Ole Ne’er Come marked.
Would I quit my job? No. Propose? Not quite yet.
There isn’t real change to be charted
Since what was shown were dreams to make real
And not past traumas that smarted.
This Ghost had haunted me to implore
A change in mind, rather, than deed
Since actions in waste were wasting my life
And leaving my spirit in need.
I now hated the rooms I had prepared,
So set out for the nearest store
To fill it with the Spirit of Christmas
Mimicked by my dream’s decor
After which I would call up my girl
As I already had planned to do
But with joy rather than obligation –
For love, not as the right thing to do.
The snow was now real; it chilled my skin
With a kiss clearing up my fogged mind
While the carols from bundles strolling the streets
The Ghost’s lesson gently refined.

And the smells of the streusel! The toys in the windows!
Carefully crafted for every man’s joy –
Testaments to their time spent for good
A mission towards which I now employ.
Progress for progress is bad for your health,
But so is running in laps.
The comforts we practice day after day
Can put us in some waking nap
Where nothing is real, not even our lives –
Food for that dark gaping door –
When what matters is the choices we make
That builds lives higher or more
Since the endless time we think we own
And spend quite frivolously
Was meant to bring joy in a lasting sense
Like the light of a bright Christmas tree.
For Christmas is when we look all about,
See how empty or full that we are,
Then resolve to choose each dream that comes true
And make this life worth dying for.

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