The Christmas present to not be opened

I had been waiting for something for so long

only to realize that I can't have it.

It was almost as though I woke up on a crisp Christmas morning,

and my house was null and void. 

I was waiting for something beautiful,

but I watched it being swept up into someone else's arms. 

I suppose I shouldn't have kept the broken shards of glass.

If it's broken beyond repair that my own two hands can provide, 

then I know that I must leave it, 

for if it is meant to be repaired, 

it is the duty of another to do so.

Or perhaps once I've grown a bit

I'll look into one of the cardboard boxes in my attic 

and my hands will be large and sturdy enough to glue some things back together.

For now they stay until one day I will even sell the house,

all of its memories swept up and away as well. 

It's been a time of watching my home burn to the ground and

taking the bits of it left uncharred and moving somewhere down the street.

Eventually I'll find a different road and a different block to drift to. 

I shall start off in the rough until my house finally finishes burning down. 

I will mourn it as it is meant to be mourned, 

and I will watch those around me mock it as though it meant nothing at all to begin with. 

I will laugh with them once my tears are dry. 

Perhaps the warmth from the fire will give me more shelter than the cold 

sweeping the house ever could.

Perhaps some of that warmth will seep into me as well.

I will make peace with the warmth that nature gives me,

because it will give me more than I can give myself. 

There are forces greater than I, 

and it is not my purpose to defeat them or battle with their wants. 

I have my own wants as I have my own demons to do battle with. 

They may win some days, 

and they may flounder on the days that I decide to not let them.

There are things that I cannot do,

things that I am simply not meant to do.

And these are things that I need to make peace with. 

The presents that I never got the chance to receive were never mine to open.

The suspenders that held my back in a line are no longer necessary for me.

I no longer need some of the training wheels that I needed when I was young.

It's a learning curve that I need to peddal upwards through before I can glide down.

My knees will be bloody and my calves will ache.

But I will refuse those wheels if they are offered

because this is the time that I must lose them. 

When you get that fresh, new bike, 

it's gorgeous and you don't necessarily know how to get from point A to point B.

But the bike itself is point A,

and at some point you'll be stepping into a car for your driving test and it won't matter.

The journey is all twenty-six points that you can ever come across.

And though you don't notice the flags as you pass,

they sink back into the earth, knowledge documented for someone else to absorb too.

This is just another flag that I no longer need to analyze. 

Human Dignity + Compassion = Peace.