“holiday” card scramblers

seen them “holiday” card scramblers

heads down, frantically shuffling fingers

through the leftover scraps of the

rush from last week, from the weeks

before, from that crazy f*****g black

friday---

complaining & spoiled college brats

home from sucking on a bong, f*****g

24/7 & “studying,”

procrastinating boyfriends & husbands

who put off everything till’ that last

crucial minute,

running their fingers through their

dwindling hair follicles---

daughters with their friends chuckling

under their breath

about the idiosyncrasies

that both their mom’s exhibit,

bumping heads in that quick crouch down

to grab that last pseudo-funny card,

the one that is supposed to say

“i care,” but at the end of the day

who is being fooled?

probably, most importantly,

you!---for you be shelling out the moola

for the card that will eventually coast on

down to the bottom of that

round filing cabinet,

just beneath the old orange peels &

the empty bag of potato chips.

 

knew a guy who stopped buying cards

years ago, seeing no point,

“all they do is throw them away anyway”

he’d say &

the guy was on to something,

but you know the stigma that you’d receive

if you didn’t show up on said “holidays”

with a card that revealed a little prewritten

comment that 10,000 or more other people

go on the same exact day, with the same

exact graphics, the same exact art, the same

exact envelope…

&

it’d just be such a shame if you didn’t get a

piece of that fruitcake that much like those

who would condemn you

serve much more purpose as a silent, rotting

doorstop,

than anything else.