The machines hum a cadence,

Hypnotic and ready.

My lab coat clean and donned,

My heart beating steady.

Arterial or venous,

At the doctor's request

I turn out precision and accuracy

For all your lab tests.

You're in pain, and you're sick,

But I need your arm, if you please.

The doctor is waiting,

And I need you to bleed.

It's mind numbing

More, more, more

Assembling parts all day

Making your mind wander

A prison in some respects

Daunting!

Physically and emotionally tough

Anxiety is our only friend

Depression seeps into the brain

Will it ever end?

Taxing to your feelings

Wishing you were smarter

Hoping for a job worth while

Feelings of anguish continually grow

Knowing tomorrow will be the same

More products

More production

More isolation of the mind

Pain in the joints 

The mundane process

Wishing you were pushed more in school

K.j.a. (c) 2017

Imagine: a boy graduates high school, three months of summer ahead before the real world waits to engulf him. The boy decides to go to California, no real plans in his head - or, maybe just one. 

California: there, because he knows he has a gift, and others have confirmed him in that assessment. The boy is there two days and finds a summer job. 

Summer: perfect blue sky, always sunny, always work whenever he wants it. He is not a virgin but he looks like he could be. They give him a pair of glasses, tell him to pretend he's back in high school, this woman is his teacher.

     July bleeds into August. Every day for two months, several times a day to be specific, he works. 

At first it is better than working at the baseball stadium, selling tickets. 

Then suddenly he is dead inside, a machine, a figure moving on the other side of a keyhole.

The boy stops and leaves California and goes back home. If he ever tells people about his summer job, the real one, they always (the guys anyway, he can't bring himself to admit it to the girls yet) call him bro and say fuck yeah and assume it is the best job in the world.

In mid-August, he was with a girl on a bed, and they accidentally made eye contact, and he could see she was as dead inside as he was. She'd smiled a defeated smile, he'd put his face next to her ear and whispered I'm sorry and they had both pretended until it was over.

First real job

Everyone was great

All friendly and helpful

Except for Tom

I'm not even going to rhyme this poem

Because Tom would probably say, 

"You didn't do it with a smile." 

Or

"It offends the customers." 

Tom, my boss' boss

Even Tom's boss went to me and said

That he didn't like Tom either

Tom goes 'undercover' 

He sends his wife to spy on us

He has video surveillance in his own house

What the fuck, Tom

Do you have nothing better to do than creep

On teenagers

Just trying to get to college? 

Literally, no one likes you 

This is a movie theater

Not boot camp

I quit my job, partially because of Tom

Because he is creepy

This poem goes out to all my coworkers

And my bosses

And people who have to deal with Tom's complaining

God

We all hate him so much

Robots and anxious immigrants 

looking for their purpose or their papers:

I have neither. Eyerolls and mouthed

"okay"s while I look for what I know

is not there. It will be okay.

I know how to hand you three pennies

while smiling at you, which robots

seem to have trouble with.

"These parts are rejected

based on our rigorous inspection

The specs call for labels,

which apparently are fables

The tops are all bare,

The labels clearly aren't there.

No matter how bad they're required

They will stay on the shelf mired

Bad parts won't get by us, for finding faults so minor

You can search the world over, and find no one finer

I say "But the label is not needed

please let my voice be heeded.

At the next step it's removed

as the parts seal is improved.

It's designed to be coated with goo

we did that so nothing gets through!

The label serves absolutely no function

Let's move the part on, to the very next junction

We need the parts badly

or our quarter will end sadly,

Our customers will be irate

If their product is shipped late"

The answer comes back," the drawings don't lie

Every T must be crossed or we won't let them by."

So I call the parts maker,

who was the mistaker

they shipped in new stickers,

But have their brains in their knickers.

They were short in their count, filled bin that was too small,

they only sent half of the labels instead of them all.

Although all is better than half, half is better than none,

I rolled up my sleeves and put half the stickers on.

Now every T has been crossed and the parts meet the print

we take them to stock at a wicked fast sprint.

And at the very next step, the labels are removed

They're a little wrinkled, but still can be smoothed

They are then be reused and re-attached

to the tops of the parts in the second half of the batch.

The crisis has passed, but the story's not done

They had unfinished business, and called on my phone

"You thought you were tricky, tried to slip something by us

But we hold to the law, we are not swayed by bias

We don't care about customers or schedules or worth

We must keep our jobs and protect our own turf

Common sense doesn't matter, you can put it to flame

Because if something goes wrong, at least we won't be blamed.

You geezers are funny, think you can make a decision,

We laugh in your face and sneer with derision

The choices are preordained, just follow the system

There's no room for thought, the rules, we just list them.

Come into the fold and be a true pilgrim,

The system's our master, now get with the program.

If you want to succeed, you must join our alliance

It's not wisdom we want, we  value only compliance

So now I'm laid off, I got the pink slip

I was just was too stubborn to put up with this s**t

In my old life I survived

Fed the kids, and stayed alive

Stayed above the rising tide

Never strayed far from that line

But I have been born anew

I do what I have to do

I don't sell anything I wouldn't use

I tell myself that I've been true

And I might get hauled off someday

Someday my kids might see my face

Through a bulletproof window pane

My wife might feel a widow's pain

But even she can understand

Why I sell this, with gun in hand

I make my living from the land

We, all of us, do what we can

If all should fall apart then trust

My little girls will have enough

The responsibilities don't vary much

We, all of us, do what we must

As a child, I had an imagination,

I saw my future, big and bright.

I dreamed of seeing the stars in space,

of all the aliens I would fight.

The possibilities seemed endless,

"I will change the world!" I cried.

I was anxious for dreams to become realities,

until one day, my imagination died.

Every single day is the same now,

day after day, the same highs and lows.

Conventional schedules now rule my existence.

Where did that child go?

In the midst of all the world-changing,

reality knocked on the door.

I lost that little child,

the child that wanted something more.

So today I sit here in my cubicle,

wondering, "Is this all I will ever be?"

My unoriginal thoughts and this tiny little box,

are what have become of me.

All Hallow's Eve comes to the park

where hanging corpses' last desire

sparked twisted evil in the dark

from trees with heat of devil's fire

Run run run away

screaming down the Trail

scarily scarily scarily scarily

Hoping not to fail

Hunting season hails arrival

mandrake roots spawn life of nether

Captured souls flail for survival

until all's left is skin like leather

Run run run away

screaming down the Trail

scarily scarily scarily scarily

Hoping not to fail

Empty shells yet learn to scream

freed from their traps by twisted death

Turn Nightmare loose in evil dream

to steal another spirit's breath

Run run run away

hoping not to fail

scarily scarily scarily scarily

chased by unearthly wail

scarily scarily scarily scarily

screaming down the Trail

I work in Walgreens, 

It's just as bad as it sounds, 

Not as bad as it seems, 

Everyday I have to do rounds, 

And I only end up straightening out creams. 

Something that baffles me, 

I'm sure it'll seem strange to you, 

I got into work, you see

And no one recognizes me because I've changed my hairdo. 

I'm the youngest worker, 

And the shortest one there, 

I'm always in my corner, 

Yet my boss is looking for me elsewhere.

Do you only remember my hair?

After I've done all this work?

Not that I really care, 

But it sort of hurts.

If they don't remember my face, 

Then could I, should the opportunity occur,

Put my hair in plaits, 

Walk in and say, "Hey, I'm your new coworker"?