The thump of the screen door closing reverberates

throughout the house,

and just like every year before

her family calls "Happy Holidays!" from the porch,

their voices

echoing

like fading ghosts

and just like every year before,

the wreath tumbles off its hook,

doomed to remain there until spring, or summer,

when her joints just might be strong enough

for her to pack it away once again.

The wrapping paper cramming her garbage full

catches the ceiling fan light,

rapidly blinking like a solemn alarm

to remind the elderly woman

that the time has once again come

to resign herself to becoming little more than an obligatory gift card,

to the deafening silence of an empty house,

aging and

hurting

and hollow,

just like her,

to a front porch that gathers dust,

to semi-annual phone calls that always end too soon,

to bone-chilling temperatures,

to stretching her money thinner than it was ever meant to go,

to overwhelming loneliness:

to merely surviving

rather than living.

Her shaky fingers peruse the ancient frames adorning her wall,

their faces frozen into stale smiles,

a living mausoleum of the love she used to feel

and of the people

she used to know.