How to Honor Your Dead Ma(ma) on Your Birthday in 30 Easy Steps

1.  Google
       a. Become agitated that Google keeps trying to tell you how to celebrate HER birthday
       b. Rephrase, say fuck it since Google doesn’t think your birthday matters either.
2.  Pop some bomb ass popcorn and sprinkle some on your ancestor altar as proof that you’re no longer the greedy girl who only wants to enjoy, but never pop, the popcorn. 3.  Sit on your living room floor, cluttered with tarot decks, oracle cards, and cannabis paraphernalia. 4.  Eat the popcorn before you pack the cone w/ Birthday Cake, ground roses, jasmine, and lavender blooms. You’re hoodoo, bohemian, and bougie, but only on Sundays 5.  Pretend that it’s Sunday. 6.  Log your melancholy ass out of FB and IG and later remember that she introduced you to the word ‘melancholy’ because you’ve always been a sad bitch (and a bad bitch, but only on weekends, federal holidays, and show nights). 7.  Start scribbling your thoughts while your leg falls asleep because you’re still on the floor criss-cross applesauce, but have yet to pack the cone. 8.  Pack the cone. Finally. Realize that you know how to light and hold the J like a grownup—hands definitely looking like hers back when smoking Benson & Hedges Menthols was a thing. 9.  Put the J into the beaded crystal holder that you made that makes you feel luxurious af. 10.  Feel luxurious af. 11.  Remember you’re supposed to be making a charming, tongue cheeky, sardonic little list to make everyone feel guilty for witnessing your sadness, but making them kiki at the same time. 12.  Add to the list. 13.  Do not cry. 14.  Do *not* cry. 15.  Cry. 16.  Do not take calls (DND that shit). 17.  Sniffle. Accept that ain’t nobody calling you anyway, name redacted/Otis. 18.  Marvel that the list keeps going. Much like life did in May 2001. 19.  Check the time and see that it’s your birthday! 20.  Let it sink in: you’ve made it to 43. When you thought you’d be dead or wanted to be but yo ass keeps right on living. 21.  Ruminate: she didn’t survive to 44. And neither did her mama. But cancer ain’t a baseball bat to the temple in your own home. So there’s that. 22.  Keep in mind: 43 don’t mean 44. You, her, whomever. Don’t count your chickens, babe. You still might not make it to 45. 23.  Try to be strong and resilient and all the toxic survival, hard lifeshit your mama taught you because it was true. And yo ass still alive, ain’t you? 24.  Confess that your shadow self might be right as you riffle shuffle the deck the way she taught you in 1985. Shuffle them over and over: pax tecum. 25.  Overcorrect to toxic positivity for maybe a quick second. 26.  Laugh because, except maybe for the popcorn, your ma would definitely hate everything about this poem. 27.  Reflect. You started writing poems to make sense of your mamaless world. Shift back to the safety of the cards, baby. 28.  Realize this whole time you ain’t even really thought about your mama. This whole time you’ve really just been thinking about you. 29.  Fill your lungs. Let the Birthday Cake and flowers lift you to a place where your mama’s hands are warm and whole as she takes the J, no need of its holder, and shows you what luxurious af really looks like. 30.  Let go, fall back to earth as your mama tells you “Happy Birthday, baby,” munching on the popcorn you are finally grown enough and thoughtful enough to make.