Poems From The Kitchen Table

My mother once told me that my eyes were like open windows.

I used to have a window in my bedroom. Sometimes I’d open it just to see the moon and the stars. I once dreamed of going to the moon—I imagined leaving my room in a rocket.

Last year, I think, I saw Santa Claus and his reindeer flying across the sky. But Santa forgot to stop at our house.

Mom said the reindeer were tired and needed to go home and rest.
“Maybe next year, if they’re not so tired. We live in a faraway place,” she said.
Then she hugged me tightly and dried my tears with her hand.

A few months ago, I learned the real reason Santa didn’t come to our house.
Mom told me it was because we lived in a place that wasn’t safe for him or his reindeer. Then she cried.

She also said it wasn’t fireworks I was afraid of—it was the sound of a powerful machine used to kill people.
Maybe that’s why I never saw sparkles in the sky.

Mom said that if I wanted Santa to bring me presents, we would have to move—to a better place.
A safer place.

I was so excited. Santa might finally visit me. Maybe I could even talk to him.
Would he let me pet his deer?

Another year has passed.

Now we live in a place called California.
I don’t have a window anymore.

Today, Mom sold our tent so she could buy us food.
Her windows are open, too.
I see anger. I see fear.

And now I understand—
Santa only ever lived in my imagination.
And maybe I’ll never make it to the moon.

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I wrote Windows in 2021 during a creative writing class at Stanford University. The story began as a response to an image prompt (the one above), and what emerged was a quiet meditation on childhood, imagination, and the way children make sense of fear, absence, and love. While fictional, it carries emotional truths drawn from lived experience and from the longing to find light in dark places.