I go to bed with electric excitement,
My charged fingers gripping a worn rosary
and lips buzzing in quiet prayer to Santa Claus,
because right now the difference isn’t so important.
I could swear I never closed my eyes, but suddenly
light is tugging them open again and my gaze on the window
meets the exact spot where the moon has just extinguished
into a crash collision of orange and purple.
My brother stands eager in the doorway and together we
tear down the stairs with lean limbs
to where they wait, those delicately wrapped packages,
for our hungry, itching fingers.
Later, when the room has given way
to wrapping paper shrapnel and warped plastic packages,
and our parents have retreated into the kitchen,
we slip out the heavy front door and begin to run,
our mouths open in ragged laughter,
our shrieks cracking like static on the empty street,
until our lungs are empty
and my pulse comes like a strobe light against my temples.
Only then do we shrink back to the house,
still bent with giggles, shaking water from the tips
of eyelashes and the bottoms of our pants
as our father burns the eggs
and the chill begins to fade.
Ryan Brown is a 12th-grade student at the Denver School of the Arts.
