the green battle
as a kid i thought i would be a talented breakdancer. it stopped when the battles got too intense. why do people bring on the big guns?
about a week ago i was given a certified mail retrieval card. out of my fears, i dreaded them - the fucking orange "certified mail" card. the ones my aunts and my mom got informing them of debts or bad legal news. i nearly balled and felt defeated when i discovered the card from a stack of mail left by a relative on the lamp table. i took it to my room and hid it between my crap of things on my dresser. i hoped it would disappear like the other bills that i would leave there (and would eventually find two months later when i cleaned it up and discarded them without a moment's doubt.)
man, what would it be? this fucking certified mail. two things bombarded my thoughts of despair. i.r.s. shit or student loan (man, give me a fucking break and america for that matter. times are hard, y'all). both of which i knew i defaulted on. or could it be.............possibly....something deeper.....maybe a pending lawsuit. my throat felt even more sore. i wanted to vomit.
the last time i vomited was when i found out a debt turned into a five figure one. i went into the restroom and puked out what was nothing but bitterness in clear spews. the nasty stuff tasted as i remember how asprin used to taste when i took them. i vomited long and hard, haunched over like a bulmic on the toilet bowl.
that night i didn't sleep. i contemplated picking the shit up the next day or holding up until its deadline...the day they would send it back to its mailer. they would have to know something was up - "he died and he can't check his mail" it would project. nah, that was too wishful and moronic. however, the notion picked on me hour by hour into the wee hours of the morning where i forgot about it at work.
the certified mail....the bane of postal activity...the hauntings of the peppermint green tab sticker on important document parcels. it stabs. it invokes desperate emotions of failure, anger, and death. if you haven't gotten one, you're fucking lucky.
so today, i nearly exhausted its deadline. i HAD to pick it up. avoiding it would be chicken shit. 'sides, it couldn't be that worst? there are people who are in worse conditions, right? i was getting a mail dammit!
after 15 minutes in line, a dent in my lunch break, devoided of emotions, and hungry... i picked it up. the post office clerk announced, "uh-oh." like a demon santa claus saying, "ho, ho!" i knew it. just give me the fucking mail already. i grabbed it and stuck it under my arms and headed home.
and where do you think it went? right.
as a kid i wanted to be a breakdancer. i fucking owned the cardboard on the high desert sands of the eastern navajo reservation. then i got real. as a kid, things were much simplier. life was fun and dominating. i wish it to be that way. im tired of battles.
