Christmas

What a wonderful time of the year.

My stepdad had a night shift
with his mistress.

My mum, putting up the tree by herself;
massive, heavy and spiky bugger.
When the three-leggéd support
broke in her hands, she started sobbing,
something broke elsewhere.
They say a threefold cord
is not quickly broken.

I was sat on the couch, watching her;
probably five or six years old.
She ingeniously used a big, square
cardboard box to support the tree.
Possibly trying to pack in
her wiggly emotions, keep them stored
nice and neatly.

Grandfather, at the bottom of a 27th
shot glass of plum vodka, so drunk
there is no superlative for it.

My uncle simply wasn't around or
kept to himself so, I can't even picture him.

Everyone just so hurt,
because my grandmother
decided to get breast cancer
and move out of our flat,
getting a small room
all to herself
in the Six Feet Under neighbourhood.

And I did what every other kid,
born after the invention of psychoanalysis,
did.

All the christmas food and drinks,
lights and gifts, I covered them
with the christmas cozy blanket
of fear and guilt. Only because parents
can't explain or
put into some words
what is all this, that's happening.

My mother, a thorough reader of the Russians
couldn't explain to me
that all happy families are alike.
But unhappy families are each unhappy
in their own way.