The Gift - David Myles

I wasn’t going home that particular

December

It was snowing outside and I remember seeing a man on the side of the road

He was tall and thin

And looked a lot like me

But with a tattered coat and ripped up jeans

He had lost his way and he had no home

He said «I was a man of fortune and fame

Everywhere I went they knew my name

I had everything I thought a man could ever need

But every Christmas season there’d be another reason

That I’d have to tell my friends that I wasn’t gonna see em

For another year or til things slowed down

Well they never slowed down

They only sped up

And eventually my family and friends got fed up

And I was all alone when I started to fall

Well I fell so hard, I fell so fast

They say the higher you go, the bigger the crash

Like a tree in the woods, no one heard a sound"

Then he got real quite and started shuffling through his coat

Then he looked back at me and said here is a note

That I want you to read this time each year

Well I started to shake

Cause I was startled to see

That the note I was reading was written by me

When I looked again he had disappeared

And it said:

Home ain’t home without your family

Christmas ain’t Christmas without your friends

Love ain’t something that you find beneath the tree

But it is the gift in the end