Empty Stockings and Chinese Food

When I was five my friends were making lists of things they wanted from Santa—a new bike, Teddy Ruxpin, boxes of chocolate. I wanted a penise. I, oh desperately, wanted a penise. If you had one you got to curse and spit and pee into the toilet standing up. They seemed quite remarkable inventions to me. All I had was a little hole between my legs that people put things into, and I wasn’t terribly impressed by it at all. I asked my mother if Santa would bring me a penise for Christmas, and she explained that Santa only visited Christian children, and we were Jewish. This time, I was unconvinced. I tried with all the power of my childish manipulation to get to spend Christmas at a friend’s house, and when this didn’t work I secretly hung a little stocking behind my bed. Santa was no so easily deceived, and when I woke the next morning it hung sagging, empty. I’ve always hated Christmas; it’s just one more reminder of everything I want and cannot have. I want a penise, I want a pirate-ship, I want purple cellophane wings and a long whippy tail. I want moss-green skin and violet eyes, I want hair the color and scent of of jasmine flowers and a body that fits my soul. I want a cloak of black swans feathers that lets me move unmolested through the night. I want wolf pelts and rocky caves and a fin to wend my way through deep cold waters so I can lie and rest on the linty lishy squish dirt ocean floors. I want my wishes always to come true. I want to forget the reasons why they don’t.