I found, as expected, a card in my mailbox.
Sealed with a sticker
Embossed: “Happy Birthday”
I wondered if there was a gift card inside for a bloomin’ onion
(There wasn’t)
Let me fish it from the trash–I don’t remember what it said–
“We hope that your birthday was as amazing as you are”
It’s management dogma:
Never give a worker anything useful
Wages are kept low
So we are kept weak
I wonder what a birthday card costs–I never buy them–
Everything costs twice as much as it did yesterday
(Except labor).
Signed with love, from my [redacted] family.
My [redacted] family,
Who’d just turned my brothers and sisters
Out in the cold
I suppose I should be grateful
For the chance
To feast on their flesh
My parents took me out to eat for my birthday and gave me a hundred dollars.
They spent time with me and we talked about the world.
They know I don’t want a card, though I’ll still check it
For cash before tossing it in the garbage.
How wonderful it would be to come to work on my birthday
And find a crisp one dollar bill
With love,
From my family.
family
Gulf
“How's the woodworking going?”
James must be thinking of my brother
“It's alright,” I offer
Have you sold anything?
“No, nothing,” I say.
“It’s a hard business to break into. A lot of people don’t appreciate it.”
He tells me about a jewelry box he made that his daughter didn't want.
I have little patience for strangers.
I don't often care to disabuse them.
They call me the wrong name
I answer their questions
About things I haven't done.
I only have so much of myself
to give away.
I’ll ask the therapist on Wednesday,
“What's wrong with me? Why is it so hard to connect with others?”
It seems like there should be some kind of answer.
Something must have happened
To make me so alien
So haughty and undeserving of kinship
Strangers tell me happy birthday
And I am angry they know something about me
Dad asks me if I’m alright.
I very clearly am not. I have been trying to keep it together
So that no one will ask me what’s wrong.
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t challenge the lie.
Minutes later I break the silence:
“Well,
I’m going home.”
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 