Wishes

          The lights pulse faster than the skip of my breathing.

          Blue...

          Green...

          Red...

          Yellow...

          Purple...

          It’s impossible to pull my eyes away.

          The television’s muffled glow filters behind me, but it can’t hold my attention while I’m watching the lights on their rhythmic trip around the tree.

          I’ve seen trees with only white lights. “It’s more sophisticated,” they say.

          I don’t care—I love the colors.

          They are like promises.

          No—that’s wrong. They are wishes.

          If you have bland Christmas wishes—stick with white lights, but if your wishes are deep and fierce—you need the spectrum of color to make them come true.

          Blue is for family and strength. The two are so tangled in my mind they feel like the same wish.

          And green is for peace and growth. I need both.

          Red will give you ambition, passion, and love. Who doesn’t want love for Christmas?

         Yellow is for happiness. How could it be for anything else?

          But purple—purple is my favorite. Purple is for all the wishes you can’t give voice to. The ones you keep so close to your heart you don’t know if you can part with them, because if you do—it will leave you empty.

          If I watch the lights hard enough they blur into a perfect haze of color. That’s the time to make wishes.

          If you can find each color in the vivid fog—you can push all you have into your wishes.

          And they will come true.

Thanks Jenny and Megan. This was such a fun break from NaNo :)

If you want to check out the rest of the entries—click here.

-Angie