Another Holiday, Another Decade.

The holidays hit like a crowbar to the teeth.

Everyone wrapped up in bows, smiles,

kids in their arms, love in their pockets.

They sit around dinner tables, clink glasses,

and I sit here in this box of a house,

the walls pressing in like unpaid debts.

It’s not even loneliness anymore—

loneliness feels too poetic, too forgiving.

This is something uglier,

a dirtier thing.

I worked myself into a corner,

clocked in to outrun the quiet,

but it finds you.

The job doesn’t care about you either,

it just wears you down,

hands you your hours like they’re a favor.

And maybe they are.

What else would I do?

I’ve tried it all—fixing myself,feeling happy,

pretending there’s a way back to that party—The one I never really got invited to.

But you can only hit your head against the same wall so many times before you stop.

Before you sit down on the cold floor,

wipe the blood from your temple,

and admit you lost.

It’s not in the cards for me,

the family, the love, the warmth.

It’s not even resentment anymore—

just a quiet, sinking realization.

I’ve been replaced everywhere I was.

They found someone better,

unbroken, someone more whole.

And so I sit here, one man alone for another holiday season. I could say I’m used to it,

but you never really get used to silence—

you just stop flinching when it speaks.

Maybe it’s time to stop trying to feel something. Maybe it’s time to just let the numb settle in like an unwelcoming friend,

the kind that doesn’t leave, the kind you stopped trying to chase out.

Here’s to another one, to more nothing, more silence. And cheers—to that little part of me that still has hope, It’s foolish but admired.