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“December 24th and we’re through again. This time for good I know because I didn’t throw you out — and anyway we waved. No shoes. No angry doors. We folded clothes and went our separate ways. You left behind that flannel shirt of yours I liked but remembered to take your toothbrush. Where are you tonight? Richard, it’s Christmas Eve again and old ghosts come back home. I’m sitting by the Christmas tree wondering where did we go wrong. Okay, we didn’t work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren’t good. But sometimes there were good times. Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid. There should be stars for great wars like ours. There ought to be awards and plenty of champagne for the survivors. After all the years of degradations, the several holidays of failure, there should be something to commemorate the pain. Someday we’ll forget that great Brazil disaster. Till then, Richard, I wish you well. I wish you love affairs and plenty of hot water, and women kinder than I treated you. I forget the reason, but I loved you once, remember? Maybe in this season, drunk and sentimental, I’m willing to admit a part of me, crazed and kamikaze, ripe for anarchy, loves still.”

— Sandra Cisneros, “One Last Poem for Richard”

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One Last Poem For Richard by Sandra Cisneros

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December's language is imprecise grief

– Nelly Sachs, tr. by Eric Plattner, from The Seeker: "Enigmas of Night"

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lullaby at 102º by Traci Brimhall

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— Megan Fernandes, “I’m Smarter than this Feeling, but Am I?” from I Do Everything I’m Told

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May Sarton, The House by the Sea

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Patrick Dundon, from "Gratitude"

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Joy Sullivan, from Instructions for Traveling West: Poems; “These Days People Are Really Selling Me on California”

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Aeschylus’ The Oresteia: Agamemnon (tr. Richmond Lattimore)

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Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

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Suddenly, it's December, and you're not 17 anymore. And you haven't been 17 for a very long time, but sometimes you need to remind yourself.

Margaux I Paul

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“Memory and Delusion” by Shirley Jackson

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Hard Loving, Marge Piercy

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I don’t know man :/ i think I’m just tired of being me

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May Sarton, "Of Grief", Selected Poems