white elephant

Nobody asked for this.
You drew a number,
unwrapped what the table gave you,
and here I was —

impractical.
No receipt.
The kind of thing people laugh at
and then take home anyway
because something in it
caught the light wrong,
or right,
and you weren’t sure which.

I don’t match anything you own.
I require a specific kind of maintenance
most people don’t have the patience for.
I came with no instructions
and the ones I wrote myself
are mostly wrong.

Someone always tries to steal
the weird one.
I used to think that meant something.
mostly it meant
I was just strange enough
to be worth the trouble
of someone else’s curiosity.

But you kept me.
Past the part of the party
where the rules run out.
Past the part where keeping me
made any practical sense.

I’m still not sure
what to do with that.

I’m not sure you are either.
But here we are —
you, and your impractical gift,
standing in the kitchen
long after everyone’s gone home.