False Sympathy

Assholes are easy to deal with,
but the nice customers?
Those are the worst kind.

I said, I can't sell to you if you're buying for someone else.
She told me to give her the damn cigarettes.
I said to myself, I don't like my job,
but it's still worth more than her satisfaction.
She left. I was fine.

The next customer was sorry that happened to me;
so was the next one,
and the next one, and suddenly
I was not fine. I ducked down to wipe my eyes,
because their well-intentioned sympathy
upset me more than the offender herself.

I don't care until they do.
Not until the hesitant remarks on
how sorry they are,
and I come perilously close to caring
what other people think of me,
even if they're strangers.

I said, I can't accept this ID. Do you have another?
He didn't. His prison ID had expired.
I wasn't afraid until the next customer in line
started talking.

The time I called my mom on break,
I cried the entire 15 minutes.
Then it was back to work.
One man said, You've been crying.
I had been, but I didn't want to talk about it
because I didn't want the tears to start again.
I wanted to be left alone.

I wanted to say this:
Their entitlement is not
your
fault.
Just talk to your kid,
text your spouse,
chat with your friend,
and let me move on.

Ignore me, and I'll be fine. 

Summer Haze

Nothing compares to stepping outside in late afternoon and
seeing, hearing, smelling summer.
As a kid it meant freedom, three months to be
worryfree, carefree, schoolfree,
but now it symbolizes time I don't have because I have to make money,
which I also don't have.

I stepped out to get some fresh air --
I would have worn better shoes if I'd known my walk would be so long,
but I didn't know anything except
that I needed to leave my apartment right now
to avoid suffocation.

A couple on a stroll in the park, holding hands.
A couple reading together out loud, in a hammock.
A couple having a picnic under the pavilion. 

So many couples, but I'm all alone,
and I'm still suffocating.
I hope once summer ends I'll snap out of this.
It won't feel strange to say hi to the people I know
and I'll enjoy the time I spend with others.

For now, though, I'm stuck here
in the hazy
summer
air.

Never A Bachelor

Take me out of context
and I make no sense.

A conglomeration
amalgamation,
combination
of thoughts,
actions,
emotions,
experiences,
hopes,
dreams,
and other cliche things. 

I wanted him
because he was forbidden.

But eternally single or eternally not,
the fact remains that I am
never a bachelor.

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.

Shelf Life

This afternoon I went to the library,
and lost myself in problems not my own.
Then I returned to reality and walked
back to the bus stop.

For just a moment
this small town felt like a city. I think
it was the smell that did it for me.

And then I passed the pizza place,
the one where I finally acknowledged
the lack of a future between us. It was only
weeks ago, but it feels like eternities
have passed since then.

My sandals continued to thud on cement
as I averted my gaze and walked by,
but I didn't hear a thing.

It's something of a relief now,
that I can no longer
watch the parking lot
since I know that car won't be there.

I wish I didn't feel bitter at the word
beautiful. I'll have to put that
dusty worry on a shelf
for now.

Rainy Days

All the earthworms are dying,

Stretched out on the ground

Waiting for jaded feet to kill them.

Maybe one day I'll understand

The painful truth of reality

And have my life crushed from me.

But others won't notice me there

Struggling to accept that I 

Will live to see another rainy day.

Pieces

When I was a kid I tried to fool Satan.
I thought that when I was in the light
God protected me
and the devil ceased to exist.

Now I try to fool my parents,
but they insist they know the truth.
They want to think they do.

1238 days ago, I went to a party
and I wrapped a present for the hostess
because she was too busy to do it herself.

I never saw her alive again.

Ever since then,
my life has become a broken puzzle,
pieced together with relative pasts
and uncertain futures.

I’m so tired of doing hard things 

by myself.

I'm not fooling anyone.
Not even myself.