For me Christmas as a kid meant one thing

Not presents or family or debt or suicide or Woolworths

Not arguments and alcohol and the Simpsons and chicken and stuffing

Not puddings and crackers and cheese and crackers and resentment

Not bottled up tension or bottles of gin or cards and stickers

Christmas for me was my Gran’s Bronchial cough

Every year we would travel south to see her

Sat in her chair

A napalm shadow of a once proud woman

In her front room of moths and flies and spiders

And we would wait for Christmas day

And we would open the perfunctory gifts

The gifts that said

‘we still love you

but we are so poor’

And we would sit around the table

And we would await the food

And then she would start

A low growl

Followed by a watery hack

And a gargle

And a splutter

And every time she coughed

She said the same thing

‘i’m so sorry for ruining christmas’

And every time she did

The cough got worse

And this woman

Who worked in an ammunition factory

Who bore two children

Who married a pilot

Who visited New York

Who lived in the same house all her life

Who used to run up and down the hill where it stood

Who worked as a secretary for a fabric company

Who painted her bedroom

Who lived and breathed

Was reduced to spitting

And apologising

And you know

She did ruin Christmas

Each year

And now

I look back

And

I realise

How cruel this world really is.