National Holiday
Today is for the hoodie
a friend had to gift me on Christmas,
solid black on the front
and a national holiday on the back-
two hands juggling
a pair of very special numbers.
Today is for the new label gun,
a present from the boss
to date the incoming product.
I danced and frolicked
while slinging cases of apples,
oranges, and potatoes, all now bearing
that pair of very special numbers.
Today is for the cheese danishes
someone bought for the occasion
because they were half-off.
We munched on them to the tune
of brain-rot and degenerate humor,
losing our minds to those two very special numbers.
Today is for a friend, not long ago
talking about mens’ mental health. She said
Never lose your sense of silliness.
Today is for the child tapping
on my arm while I’m stocking the shelves
to tell me how much he likes my hoodie,
his smiling mother looking on.
You might groan and say I’m way too old for this
but that’s only gonna make me laugh harder
for all the joys still findable in stupidity.
Happy 6/7, y’all!
16 thoughts on "National Holiday"
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Intriguing narrative. Thank you!
Thank you as well!
I’m laughing with you–cheers to the joys we find in stupidity!
There will always be room in my life for a little bit of stupid. Happy to have you laughing along!
I love the tone of this. Cheers to being thoughtful, to being open to silliness, to munching on Danish “to the tune/of brain-rot and degenerate humor”
Cheers as well!
Stay silly, my friend. Keeps us young.
I do my best! Thank you for your appreciation!
What a beautiful piece and perfect depiction of the setting. The former ops and food worker in me loves all the things about this.
Now if only I was smart enough to know what 6/7 is…Happy June Bug Day and whatever else it is. Thanks for all of this. Beautifully done.
It makes me really happy that the joy and silliness can come through, even if the reasons why remain nebulous. But don’t worry about not knowing what 6/7 means…no one really does. The youth just found it funny all of a sudden and it’s a joke that just keeps giving.
I, like Elle, don’t recognize significance of 6/7, except that it’s today, but I see this poem as a celebratory statement while in the midst of “everything at sixes and sevens”! Well done.
No one really knows what 6/7 is, but it became really popular among the youth for a phase, and for some reason I found it really funny instead of really annoying. I made work a big dumb celebration yesterday with it.
Thank you so much for commenting!
Silliness reverence! Nice!
Gotta keep the inner child laughing, y’know!
LMAO Such a fun, joyful piece — Happy 6/7!
And God bless the kid from that last stanza. Everything else was written but I didn’t know how to end it, yet. That kid just walked up and gave it to me. My coworker was cackling as it happened, too.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!