day SIX HUNDRED and EIGHTY THREE

happy holidays

the streets are lined

with light-up snowflakes

and candy canes

before fall’s first frost

last week it was still eighty degrees

and the president was denying climate change

at work my co-worker

tells anyone who will listen

that her christmas tree goes up

before thanksgiving

people think we rush this shit now

but their memories are short

twenty-five years ago

i was walking out of a mall

after slaving away my halloween

for an ex-jock bully manager

as the mall was putting up

christmas decorations

while simultaneously taking down the halloween ones

the visual was like something

out of a schlocky tim burton film

you haven’t really gone to hell and back

during this season

unless you’ve worked retail

weeks later at that store

people had me pressed up against a wall

salivating for baseball hats and sports team coats

practically killing each other over things

they wouldn’t care about come spring

years later

down’n’out at that wine store in buffalo

they started pumping christmas music on november first

that blubbering dim wit of a store manager

worked us nine to nine every single day

then nine to eleven the week before new year’s eve

on lunches we drank in the bar across the street

on breaks we passed around a jug of cheap vodka

inside the nearest employee parked car

puking up our lives in that cracked parking lot

for a shit paycheck and the privilege to work

toward the end

i sat in the staff room shitter and cried

and i get PTSD sometimes when i hear jingle bells

last night on tv

they had christmas commercials

about treating yourself this season

black friday can be all about you

if you hope and you wish hard enough

it seems about right for the times we’re living in now

capitalism in its full circle glory

these days

my only wish is to get through

the holidays with some semblance of dignity

with my soul in tact

as the nation’s rots anew

on its avarice and greed

tip-toe through the days

keep my shit together until it all ends

and wake up on january second

trying my best to feel like a brand-new man

amidst the dead pine trees collecting on the sidewalks

and all of the sour, empty faces

stumbling around like hangovers

the new year is always sure to bring.

--John Grochalski