The Gift

There are some days

when this gift I have been given

I would give it way.

I would give it away,

I would wrap up

the nausea and the fatigue,

the swimming head and the shaking,

the anxiety and the apathy

in tissue and shiny paper.

I can see it in my head,

a lumpy parcel shivering on the table.

But, to whom would I give my gift,

my shiny present of deceit.

I wouldn’t wish my gift on anyone.

I cannot give it away.

Instead I should kick that parcel as hard as I could.

Make it sky-rocket into space

until it disappears into the stars,

sucked in and imploded by a black hole.

But.

And there is always a ‘but’.

There are other days.

There are other days,

when I open up that parcel. My gift

and out spills

colour,

lines,

shape,

form

and a thousand words

to describe the world

and all it’s beauty

and I wonder –

if I did kick my gift into the stars

would I chase after it?