All Of My Work Poems Clock In Late

Inspired by Morgan Parker's Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, recommended by Valerie Loveland.

The inspiration comes from her title "On Children, How I Hate Them And Want To Corrupt Them, And How You Know I Hate Them, And What That Could Mean".

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Working With Children Inspired Me To Grow Up And Be Happier Than The Type Of People Who Work With Children

When i was too young to know
better I loved the people and
hated the job

Kids who tried to
climb me out of their parents’
poverty And parents
who paid me mistress money to
keep their children out of their schedules

There was never just one type of reason to quit

Before the degree was
a piece of paper It was a life
sentence chosen at seventeen
when i thought adults only
despaired occasionally
and that depression was chicken pox

It was a teacher we’d nicknamed Princess
Thundercloud who taught me to stare like
amaretto sour My face part barometer
part classified document that everyone
suspected they knew the contents of but nobody had
actual proof

When Princess Thudercloud was pinned
under a car And the ambulances arrived
on time for her but late for retrieving her
students’ now bloodied homework
and the list of which children would be
picked up by late parents and which would
ride home on the bus
Parents and teachers ignored the sirens
around the but my coworker might be
dead apologies And insisted there must be a better
system to keep track of their kids And
why weren’t we already implementing it?

I’d like to think
my mother loved me more than paperwork
flying away from the broken
glass of a woman she only
spoke to on conference
night But that she’d at least be
decent enough to suffer a schedule
glitch in a moment of silence for
a misfortune bigger than having to
leave work early to pick up a son
who should've been sent
​home on the bus

I gave up my career to pour
coffee A beverage i don’t even drink
Managed a wine store Another
concoction of capitalism and beverages I had
no taste for And quit that too

I made a great server
Happy at twenty percent but always
striving for enough to retire

I don’t miss the kids but
i miss being the sort of person kids liked

Now i push off the heads of strangers
exhausted by sitting next to me on buses
Never imagine a summer day no matter
the heat of my impending future

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