Sestina

Passing by, in every window
you see the warm lights
yet you can't help but feel sad,
turn yourself inside out
shake off the negative feeling --
now you're just empty.

Her laugh is unlike yours, full, not empty,
this girl you watch from your window
you hate and envy her for feeling,
insides twisting when her smile lights
up her whole face. Now she's out
making snowmen, but their mouths are sad.

Even trees, when they droop with snow, are sad
lamenting winter and branches stripped empty
but you spurn empathy. You stop going out,
avoiding the gleaming Christmas windows
rejecting the advances of winking colored lights
until you find you've stopped feeling.

Why did you stop feeling?
Did you lose them? You don't seem sad.
Regardless, you leave on no lights
make the house seem empty
when relatives cloud up your windows.
So they wonder if you went out,

And they'll wait, even though it's cold out
wondering when you'll be back, feeling
accomplished from shopping, real or window-.
But later they're shocked and sad
when reporters, eyes shiny but souls empty
arrive in newsvans, flashing their garish lights.

And later that night, your first love lights
a candle for you, but blows it out
shared memories have hollowed almost empty,
she'd rather be surrounded by happy feelings
instead of puzzling out the past, so hopeless sad
but she leaves the candle in the window.

Lights flick out early by the bedsides of children
excited, fighting the urge to look out the window
while you fade sadly into the great empty.