GOBBLE THE FRIENDLY GHOST

when i was a little tater tot i always had a vivid imagination always cutting and pasting....the rubber cement out 24-7....peeling back the paper on the crayons till there was only a twig stump to work with....P.S. magaenta was my favorite color which was created in 1949 and to date there are a 153 colors of crayola crayons. just a little side of factoid n cheese to go with your mashed potatoes and gravy..i loved the holidays...of course, i loved halloween it is what "we" refer to in my inner circles as "gay christmas" but as i turned the corner on my inch worm into november i felt a static electricity in the air...ironing leaves with wax, making turkeys for the cleary ice box museum out of paper plates, colored felt, and pipe cleaners. don't get me started with the things i made with glitter. so, as thanksgiving would approach an ol' school friend would come to visit me...i would hear a clangling on the back sliding glass door and their she would be with all of her beautiful plummage.....GOBBLE THE FRIENDLY GHOST. i would brush her feathers and i would lend her mom's vintage tiffany's double set of pearls. We would play kick the can with the leftover canned cranberry sauce. We would laugh and laugh. She always told the best off color jokes. I think she had something against the jews because she was always whispering something in yiddish...she would say NAFKA. NAFKA. NAFKA to my aunt effie who has been married 4 times and has two kids with no baby daddies. my cat fredrica french fry would always hiss and moan at gobble and i would have to separate the two of them...gobble loved to play with her toys..but fredica was not havin' any of that. as the hourglass ran out of thanksgiving and all the men would head out to the stumble inn for beers and darts before returning the next day to the coal mines to feed the families in our gated community aka "the trailer park." gobble would start to fade out and it would be harder and harder to see her. I would try to reach out and I would scream gobble gobble..and my grandmother betty would say "oh chris thinks he is a turkey how cute"...but no one knew the pain i was in and i how i longed for my feathered friend to stay with me to shelter me from the woods filled with buck tooth pedophilias and grizzly bears....gobble can you hear me....gobble can you hear me.....the man made mountains are alive with the cries of gang raped children. So, as my cousin puts out the name cards at the dining room table for dinner today, she places my boyfriend's card next to mine...as we start passing the stuffing, the candied yams, and gravy..i turn to him and say isn't the turkey so moist...and he smiles back with a mouthful of sweet potato pie and mumbles yes......and then my aunt rita looks over at the empty chair next to me and shots me her famous crazy eyes. I heart thanksgiving, but I cannot wait to leave Santa cookies and milk because he then comes up to play a game of crazy 8's before heading off to the next house.