Mood: multi-tasking | Drinking: tea
First things first: a review of The Secrets of Falling is up on Cherry Bleeds. Enjoy.
And then, a poem for all my unemployed peeps out there…
Severance
At 2 p.m. on Tuesday
the cafés are full of the aimless
feigning busyness
hunched over laptops
to conceal their lack
of someplace to go.
Not enough emphasis is placed
on the comfort
of Somewhere To Be
on the consolation
of Being Needed
by someone who cares nothing for you
beyond what you can do for him.
When your services are no longer required
and the thing that makes you You
is made redundant
you begin to miss the formerly noisome clamor
of alarm clock, the previously infuriating routine
of commute.
Disconnected from the comfort
of customary daily aggravations
your mind begins to wander
and then
your feet begin to follow, but
bound by the panic borne of
decades of wage-earning servitude,
neither mind nor feet go anywhere original.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday
you are just waking up. And when, after
2 bowls of cereal, you still haven’t found
a reason to discard your pajamas, you realize
the only way to escape the clutches
of the crumb-covered couch, the zombie glare
of afternoon reruns, is to create
an entirely new irritation.
Soon a path is worn from your front steps
to Starbucks where faux-friendly baristas
begin to pour your triple half-caff
before you even walk through the door.
By 2 p.m. you’ve accomplished nothing
of consequence. All the familiar sites
have been visited, the habitual links
have been clicked, the new tradition
has been established. Once again
you have Somewhere To Be.
-Lo, no longer severed.
LaDonnaWitmer 