The Twelve Nights of Christmas
On the first night of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
1.
you thought it was funny to drag me under the mistletoe
at your sister’s house buried out in those country lanes,
and you whispered it was a tradition you always wanted to try
so who was I to say no and dash your strange little hope?
it was so easy to say yes to a girl like you, eyes all a-bright,
like I was the gift you couldn’t wait to unwrap
2.
we were hungover from too much wine and cider,
our limbs tangled in borrowed sheets,
the medley of someone wishing us a merry Christmas
from a faraway hallway, the echoes rebounding,
and you snuggled into my side, so perfectly mine,
so simple to imagine a future just like this
3.
it was our first holiday fight on the drive back,
when you cracked the window open too much
and I blared the heavy rock while you pouted,
lost in a vision of when we were happiest —
which seemed far away, impossible, in the moment
of words clashing rather than twining ‘round each other
