I used to cry for Christmas tree ornaments.

You know, the kind that always ended up

in the bottom of the box, somehow,

or smashed under someone’s foot,

or thrown by a questing, careless child’s hand?

The kind that you used to treasure,

perhaps they were colored glass,

or even the simple shining baubles.

I shed tears every time one was broken,

and not because of the sliver of glass that, slicing,

alerted me to the presence of another

lost soul,

but because of what I knew I would see,

peering, lost in the visual,

a train wreck of silver shards.

For me, they were always happy dreams

in gay colors,

shattered, lost upon the gray concrete floors

of reality.