Wanted* (read the three day old paper):
yourself, position effective immediately, pay negotiable

Being in the job market for longer than I’d care to admit, I applied.
I could be a yourself.
I hoped I wouldn’t have to sit in a cubicle.
(I knew I could though, if it came right down to it).

I wore Roots sweatpants to the job interview,
It’s quirky, I thought, I am *just doing me.
I envisioned my power animal: that vastly underrated emoji
(You know the one; he’s coy as ****).
I was also coy as ****.
Or as coy as I could ******* feel in pants whose proud purpose was to make their wearer perspire.

I bet NO ONE had thought of this.

Turns out everyone had thought of it.
****…

Needless to say, I didn’t get the position; the yourself life wasn’t for me.
So I applied elsewhere.
Somewhere far away from that whole embarrassing sweatpant fiasco.

I was getting SO SORE! I know the exposed wood seats were very 21st century, but they were the most uncomfortable ever..
What are you going to get?
I don’t know, what are you going to get?
Probably the pasta – with goat cheese.
Pasta, eh?
Yeah, why?
No reason.
Okay.
Okay.
Why is it that we go out for dinner with the ones we “love” and the ones that we’d dine on toothpaste-out-of-the-tube with (if it came to that) get ignored for the sake of making things better.

This isn’t better.

But it is softer than the concrete floor
And my sleeping bag is here
Unzipped like a blanket
Except for the very end; that won’t unzip.

Wine from an old water bottle
With a carabineer clipped onto the lid
(I always felt really good about knowing it was called a carabineer).

I can see the mountains from my window
Sometimes the clouds cover their peaks
But not today.

Sometimes I feel okay that I’m not in Denmark
But not today.

There you were, with chocolate all over your fingers
And a huge grin plastered all over your face.
You plopped those truffles into your mouth
As if you were a starving child,
Eyes shining, like it was the first time you’d tasted food in weeks.

That night I heard you crying
And when I came into your periwinkle purple room
You had chocolate all down your cheeks
As if your tears weren’t made of salty water
But rather, salted caramels
Melting down your burning cheeks.

There you were, looking so small buried in your mountain of a duvet.
I hugged you, and squeezed you
Told you that if I could, I would serve you chocolate truffles for every meal
With chocolate milk to wash them down.
I asked you what was wrong
And you said you didn’t know.

And you still don’t know.
And still, when I sneak in to kiss your cheek
When the lights are dim and I think you’ve fallen asleep,
My lips meet chocolate tear drops,
And my heart sinks because never has anything so sweet
tasted so bitter.

Capitalism is a funny word
The kind that you throw around to sound fancy
with your pinky raised whilst you sip green tea
out of your bone (or is it off-white?) porcelain teacup.

What does it mean to mean?
Contemplate this cuddled under your quilt from IKEA
wake up, startled, kicking yourself out of a fall
because, darling, you do not mean anything at all.

and rumor has it
the night she died
her computer history showed 32 Google searches
all with the key words:
how. to. get. the. most. out. of. life.

rumor has it that it's not through the internet.

hey life,
slow down, would ya?
forever yours,
E