{"id":120,"date":"2025-09-05T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/2021\/11\/09\/the-love-for-all-living-creatures\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T20:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T20:37:07","slug":"the-christmas-i-never-had","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"The Christmas I Never Had"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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<\/h2>

The streets wear their brightest colours,
but l am the child no one notices.
I see a million lights,
yet none shows the way home.

I press my ear to the ground
to listen for the whispers of kindness,
but all I hear is the laughter of feet
rushing past my empty shadow.


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<\/h2>

A season of giving,
But I, who do not live where their cameras can reach,
do not have a share.

How long do I have to watch the world unwrap happiness
while my soul remains boxed in misery?

They chant, \"Joy to the World\"
but here I am,
a son of the same soil,
forgotten by the joy they sing of.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/h2>

I tried to write to Santa,
but the words choked in my throat.
How do I beg for bread,
won't his elves mock how rich my poverty is?

December after December,
I have grown to watch Christmas from a distance
through my tinted windows of hope.
Not all is merry,
nor is every night silent.

And no, I do not envy the rich for their joy,
I only wonder if they hear my hunger when they laugh.
Or perhaps, when Kevin sees me,
he realizes it's better to be \"Home Alone\"
than spend Christmas on the streets...<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The streets wear their brightest colours,but l am the child no one notices.I see a million lights,yet none shows the way home. I press my ear to the groundto listen for the whispers of kindness,but all I hear is the laughter of feetrushing past my empty shadow. A season of giving,But I, who do not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-author-campbell","category-campbell","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}