Two sentences are all Nikky needs to take apart one of the most comfortable sayings in the language. "They say the present is a gift. But if that's really true then why would i want to send it back?" It reads like a joke, and it works as one, but the joke has a cold edge. The poem is called "Metaphors," and what it does is test a metaphor by taking it literally. If the present really is a gift, the speaker asks, why does it feel like something to return?
Start with "They say." The phrase has no name attached. It is the voice of greeting cards, motivational posters and well-meaning advice, and the poem's first sentence simply repeats that voice without comment. It is calm and complete, a neat eight-syllable line that settles into a steady beat: "they SAY the PRES-ent IS a GIFT." The saying works because of a pun. "Present" means both a gift and this moment, and the old wisdom slides from one meaning to the other so smoothly that we hardly notice it is a trick of vocabulary. The first line is deliberately smooth, and the second is built to snag on it.
The pivot is "But." One small word turns the poem from quotation to argument. What follows is almost a piece of logic: "if that's really true then why..." The "if... then" frame sounds like a school proof, and "really" gives it a sceptical, slightly weary tone, as if the speaker has heard the claim once too often. The poem is not rejecting kindness or optimism. It is asking for evidence, and a flat, reasonable question is a quiet way of doing that.
The question itself hinges on "send it back." This is the language of unwanted parcels, receipts and returns counters. It makes the gift metaphor uncomfortably concrete, because we do not return things we are glad to have received. The phrase also leaves a gap in meaning. It could mean the speaker wants to refuse the present moment, to push away whatever is happening now. It could also mean wanting to send the present back in time, to be somewhere else or some when else. The poem does not choose, and the ambiguity is part of its force. Either way, the present has been turned into an object that can be handled, judged and found wanting. The pronoun "it" has the same effect. It is cooler and more distant than "my life" or "this day" would be.
The sound of the line supports this. "Why would i want to send it back?" is made of short, plain words, nearly all one syllable, and it falls into the same eight-syllable pattern as the opening: "why WOULD i WANT to SEND it BACK." The two eight-syllable stretches, one on either side of the hinge, mirror each other like a statement and its reflection. The second one ends on the hard, final "back," which closes the poem with a small thud instead of a flourish. There is no rhyme, and the poem is laid out as plain prose, which suits its conversational feel. It sounds like something said aloud, perhaps half under the breath.
Then there is the lowercase "i." Everything else is correctly capitalised and punctuated, so the small letter stands out. Judging by the text alone, it could suggest a casual, texting-style voice, or a speaker who feels diminished, or simply a choice not to dress up the self. We cannot be sure which, and the poem gives no biography to settle it. What the lowercase does is shrink the person who is supposed to be receiving this wonderful gift, and it makes the question sound less like a debate and more like a confession.
The poem is significant because it manages so much in so little space. It takes a phrase that is meant to comfort and shows how little comfort it offers to someone who is struggling. It does this without anger and without self-pity, only by following the metaphor to its logical end. A gift you cannot bear to keep is a strange kind of gift, and the poem leaves that thought hanging, with no answer, in the question mark.