I
When the store was empty,
I sang “The man in one nineteen
takes his tea all alone”
while my boss
was in the backroom
doing who-knows-what.
He drank Diet Coke,
and I drank Vernor’s.
He ordered pizza when we sold
more software than the other stores.
He bought See’s Candy
at Christmas.
I baked a carrot cake for Jenny
when it was her first year married
and her husband [...]
November 6, 2007
Re: Complaints and customer service
To What Natural Forces It May Concern,
I have been a firm supporter of your institution all my life, but lately I have been very unhappy with certain options in your program. For example, to restrict menstruation, the only options your program gives me are pregnancy or old age. [...]
“The Garden”
by Wesley Ann Johnson
The mercury sun swells
Looms
Hits the dust
Etching and polishing
Shaking the collisions of the blue
Ringed spiral sky
Making it smolder
Making it hum
Dashing lines
Green with bottoms
Deceitful and possessive
Of the silent rising fog
Drifting
To the valley
Of the yellows
Of the reds
Beasts creep from the corners
When Dusk drops
[...]
I need to give a warning to my own mind
as I sit here with a pen in restless hand
tapping, nodding, thinking, frantically worrying
what is coming up tastes like vomit but smells of smoke
it’s coming out on this notepad I stole
I remember stealing it
it was from the store where you had worked
I remember it being fucking [...]
I’m starving for work almost as much as I am starving for food. Being a detective is supposedly glamorous and all, but most days I’m cooped up in my bland, colorless office waiting for someone to show up with a meal ticket. Times are hard and clients are scarce. I’ve been thinking lately of going [...]