The tree is still standing, but no one believes Its lights flicker faintly like old memories I pour two cups though there's only me The radio whispers what used to be There's perfume on the coat that I'll never clean Ghosts dressed in ribbons haunt evergreen Every carol cuts like an open wound Every silence hums an old monsoon And I wonder if joy was just borrowed time If we dressed our sorrow and called it divine This is the holiday oddsee A road paved with what we used to feel Where laughter turns to elegy And warmth is something you rebuild Still, I keep driving through the years Through love, through loss, through souvenirs Because even the pain, in its quiet decree Becomes a kind of company Midnight, and the snow looks like static on a screen I see us in flashes tinsel, velvet, and in-between We promised forever between blinking lights But forever's a word that doesn't survive nights There's no miracle, just endurance and grace Learning to smile with salt on your face Some gifts you lose, some stay unopened Some hearts don't heal, they just stay golden And maybe the ache is the only real thing The echo that teaches our hearts to sing This is the holiday oddsee A cathedral built from memory Where joy and grief share the same key And love outlives its eulogy Still, I light a flame for who I've been For every ghost that I let in Because even the pain, in its quiet decree Becomes a kind of company The season doesn't heal, it reminds That time doesn't take, it rewinds You find peace not in the shining tree But in the shadows it lets you see So here's to the ones who never returned To lessons that froze before they burned Here's to the silence that still hums our song To finding we belonged all along This holiday oddsee, cruel and kind Leaves ashes, but also a light behind Because even the ache, eternally Is proof that we were meant to be