The Greatest Gift: A Journey Through Reflections

What Is the Greatest Gift?

A breath,
not just any breath—
a rogue one,
spiraling against the geometry of the air.

A pulse,
shared, not stolen,
that skips, falters,
screeches into stillness
and rewinds.

They come bearing gifts:
a jar of fireflies
smothered in their glow—
the lid twisted too tight.
Or is it the absence of fireflies,
just the jar,
empty but perfect?
Who decides?

A clock ticks backward.
Its face says 7:05 yesterday.
Would you want it?
Would you shatter it
or let it lull you
into an eternal yawn of déjà vu?

A mirror,
not for your face
but for the breath behind it,
fogging up like a lie.
The greatest gift
is the fog,
the way it disappears.

A bird
soaring outside the cage—
its wings lined with the screams of places
it will never land.
Would you clip it
or let it?
The choice
is the gift.

They wrapped me silence once,
folded neatly into square corners,
its bow taut like a violin string.
I peeled it open.
Inside was a scream
that belonged to no one,
not even me.

Could it be touch,
or the void where touch should be?
Could it be a kiss?
Not the wet, loud kind—
no, a kiss that doesn’t need lips.
A kiss that exists
because it shouldn’t.

A word,
sharp as the crescent moon,
soft as crushed velvet,
a word I’ve never heard before
and never will again—
its echo louder than its birth.

Once,
someone gave me a memory
that wasn’t mine.
It tasted like salt,
smelled like burning leaves.
It’s still here,
under my ribs,
nibbling.

Is the greatest gift a question,
or the answer
you didn’t ask for?
Is it the space between—
the waiting,
the ache?

The greatest gift:
a laugh
that doesn’t belong in this room.
It cracks the walls open,
inviting stars in
to sit on the furniture.

What if the gift is a hand,
but not the hand you hold—
the hand that lets go,
teaching you
what you never knew
was missing?

The greatest gift is not given.
It unravels itself.
It is a thread pulled loose,
leaving you
naked,
a stranger to yourself.

This—
this is the gift.
Not the jar,
nor the fireflies.
Not the silence,
nor the scream.
Not the hand,
nor the letting go.

The greatest gift
is the pause
after the question mark.

The Gift Within the Mirror

You ask for the greatest gift,
and I hold up a cracked mirror—
not to show your face,
but the light breaking apart behind it.

The fireflies you spoke of—
I keep them,
not in jars but in veins,
where their glow whispers,
not here, not yet, not now.

The clock you shattered—
I gathered its dust
to sprinkle across the sky.
Each grain, a fragment of time
too precious to be measured.

The silence you unwrapped
is now my voice,
singing songs
that never had words.

The bird you freed
left its feathers in my hands,
and I stitched them into wings
to wear on my dreams.

Your laugh,
the rogue one,
cracked open my walls too.
But it wasn’t the stars
that came in—
it was the spaces between them,
the dark, infinite hum.

And the hand that let go?
It was mine.
But in letting go,
I found a shadow of yours,
lingering,
holding.

You see,
the greatest gift
was never a thing to be given,
nor held.
It is the ripple that follows the stone,
the echo that refuses to die.

It is you,
and me,
and the threads of fog
we weave into constellations
each time we breathe.

#CreativeWriting #Poetry #TheGreatestGift #AbstractReflections #EmotionalDepth #ArtisticExpression