“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 fucking black
friday---
complaining & spoiled college brats
home from sucking on a bong, fucking
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.