poem of the day 03.05.15

little by little

the faces on the train tonight

look cold, damaged and dead

in this city we are killing ourselves

little by little every day

this afternoon a twelve-year-old asked me

what i’d like to do for a living

if i didn’t have my current job

in that way twelve-year-olds have

of asking the right kind of dumb questions

i told her that i would’ve made a good

unemployed son of a wealthy family

she laughed, told me to be serious

asked me why i took this job in the first place

i thought about the years working

in warehouses, retail and white collar offices with no windows

the clerk jobs that allowed me to live part-time

i told her that this was an easier death

that now i was only killing myself little by little

instead of in big chunks

the twelve-year old laughed at me, snapped her gum

and started playing with the pens on my desk

like the little flirt she’s becoming

she winked at me and said, i think i understand

but sitting here tonight

on another train ride full of the dead

that smells like the world’s bathroom

going home only to gear up for another tomorrow

little by little i begin to think

that she just didn’t get me at all.