Christmas Party

this is the street where i had the first kiss
i ever put on replay, rewound
over and over behind my
eyelids. where frost marked
the lawns on the walk to school
in the winter. where sporadic, summer
rain made fragment freckles on
the asphalt.

this is the house that always had a light
on. that hosted every celebration from eight
to eighteen
and onward, creaking under
the weight of chlorine footsteps
thundering upstairs to fetch speakers,
change outfits,
play video games.

this is the room i slept in
when i fell in love for the first
and last time. where i looked out
the window so long the view
changed. where we retreat near the end
of the Christmas party, when all
the adults are leaving

and you and i
are laughing and singing, staring
at revolving disco ball patterns
on the ceiling, and somehow
knowing nothing
will ever be like this again.

Morgan Ziegenhorn is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in biology and minor in creative writing. Her work has previously appeared in 805 Literature and Arts and Persephone's Daughters. She is currently a PhD. student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography studying the voices of marine mammals. She is from Sacramento, California.