I'm not an award winner
Those days are long gone
I'm just a simple person
Working a mundane job.

The days I do work
I see lives shuffle past
A businessman from Boston
a trucker hauling an empty home.

This man here, he is unclean
He bathes at the park
He can't afford utilities
He lives alone, off scrap.

The lady from the bank
I have her usual ready
Two cookies, in a napkin
for when she arrives.

This man here, always so rude.
I try to force a kind smile
ring up his food
feeling disgusted by his looks.

This girl, always in alone.
We're supposed to watch her
she steals
But I always treat her with kindness.

The people who deserve kindness
I find are from a checkered past.
Why should they get unkindness
from someone they don't even know.

But this job is bland
No one really cares who I might be.
Just the girl behind the counter,
ringing them up and cooking.

I try to clean up after others
smiling all the way
but some people wear it down.
My kindness has bounds.

I never take it out
on the customers coming in
I keep it to myself
letting it grow.

My heart burns
my jaw clenched
stomach turning
head pounding.

I feel the anger flare
I choke it back down.
No one here deserves it
so I bear it alone.

But it's just a boring job
in my now adult life.
I suppose I should be happy
to not be unemployed.