Severely Homesick

The new break room is a lot fancier than my old one.
It's much bigger and there are even couches --
the reclining chair in the corner is the most comfortable.
But I don't care that there are three fridges and a toaster;
I miss the one with with just one fridge and no toaster.
I'd even prefer the hard chairs and bare tables
to the slightly less hard chairs and table decorations
if I just knew the people I worked with, if they were my friends.

Maybe there was a toaster and I just never noticed before
because I never needed to use it.
I used to go home home for my meal breaks.
Now I sit alone and read.

My energy is spent fighting months of muscle memory
that I didn't think would need fixing,
erasing all that is familiar and friendly in less than a night,
replacing it with more people, more insecurity,
more silence.

The weariness in my feet and the pain in my dry cracked hands
are reminiscent of retail, echoing with hollow hopes of a
more promising future and less painful past, as

past becomes present becomes endless becomes

there is no such thing as future,
just a perpetual now here at our disposal, and right now
my present is significantly less than I want it to be.

A nose-ringed woman and long-haired man told me
my name is lovely, and I thought of
how it rhymes with a country in the southern hemisphere,
one that's warm and sunny and nothing like me.

My sentiments taste bitter and hot, choking me.
Not unlike my afternoon meal, they burn my tongue --
but I swallow anyway, and I can no longer taste the good.

Routine breeds malcontent, and I am suddenly more
restless, peaceless, and hopeless than ever before
because I can't name what I'm feeling or the reason for it
and I don't know how to fix it. I don't even know what I want.

I just know that I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'll never be happy.

I try to purge myself of my negative emotions
but even when I'm filled with love I still feel a twinge of pain
because I can't express the full extent of what I feel,
and because eventually one of us will lose the other.

That's why apathy seemed like the easier route.

Apathy breeds contentment with the routine,
and it helps to shrug off discouragement and doubt,
or at least to not care. People don't affect you, and
it doesn't allow for worry about the direction of your life.

I asked Siri what the purpose of life was -- I thought he might know --
but he said he's never thought about it, which makes one of us.
Maybe it's not to break the routine, but to learn to enjoy it
(as if I know anything about that).

Damn apathy for leaving me helpless.

For letting me hurt on the hardest days
until I finally look down and remember that I matter.