"Black Friday 2009" [a bitchin poem by Nicole Santalucia]

Walt Whitman Rd. Long Island NY on Black Friday 2009

Every year at Christmas time the bitches crawl out of the woodwork,
get in their cars, and piss someone off for no reason at all.
What would Walt Whitman have done if he were waiting in traffic on a road named after him?  -- Anonymous

The traffic lights are a bitch on Walt Whitman Rd.
It’s a bitch waiting for the light to turn green
and all the bitch-ass cars in front of me are not driving
themselves – these Long-Island-Bitches are not paying
attention.

Oh, Walt, would you have cursed out these bitches?

If I still drank alcohol I would go have a bottle
of Southern Comfort right now –
but, no. I can’t seem to get off
this bitch-face road.

Oh, Walt, my guilt is in your honor.

This Friday, the blackest of Black Fridays
and I am driving nowhere to buy nothing
because I quit the holidays.
Only bitches celebrate Christmas.
Yes, I know this implies calling my grandma a bitch
and maybe even you, reader, listener, audience.
You bitches can sit around on Christmas day and be grateful
that there was a lonely man named Jesus
who once walked this earth.
He looks lonely - in the pictures
and statues, he looks like he was hungry too.
Oh, and tired, he looks exhausted and he must be angry –
I get angry when I’m hungry, tired, and lonely
sitting in traffic – Jesus
waited for the sun to rise
then he, like magic,
mimicked the sun’s motion
and without any technology nor medicine
he rose from the dead –
I bet there was a crowd of bitches
fighting to get front row seats to see this happen.

And that’s why I don’t want to celebrate Christmas this year
but I probably will because I love to ignore the truth,
make up stories, sit at the dinner table and eat
until I feel sick – then bitch about it.

-- Nicole Santalucia