for a rainy day:
You Will Be Asked
When you go on a job interview
you will be asked:
What are three words that describe you?
It's a stock question
(hint: they haven't prepared, nor read your application)
You should not take this question seriously,
never answer with the truth.
Do not tell them
you are a romantic,
you fall in love as easy as breathing
never learn from your mistakes.
You hate to admit it: the word
romantic is
childhood movies with Princes Most Charming and Princesses Most Beautiful who would rather lie asleep than go after what they most want;
movies with chance meetings and mistaken identities, with men who are charmingly rude and women who realize the power of love (almost) too late to be saved;
to be romantic is to be weak,
to be needy,
to be a woman.
(You/They forget
romantic is
to see the beautiful in the world around you,
to open your heart to new people,
to believe that every new person you meet is a new friend,
just maybe.)
Do not tell them
you are forgetful,
often found
stars in your eyes.
Don't let them know
you miss emails
lose your glasses,
you sometimes stop in the street with a dream in your head that blocks out all else
you've forgotten a thousand and one nightmares
anticipate ten thousand more.
You look at something red and forget where you are,
forget reality (cast it away)
for the slippery slick of blood at a murder scene;
you see clouds moving across a porcelain sky
consider how it would feel to roll and roil and tear yourself to pieces;
smell cut grass
imagine pristine 50s lawns
movie sets with pastel houses.
You forget
you have a body
lose your mind in the possibilities.
Above all,
don't tell them
you are insubordinate.
You read porn in your spare time
eat chocolate black enough to rot your insides
watch illegal movies instead of doing work,
get splendid grades anyway.
You write terrible prose
worse poetry,
words a piercing addiction you cannot shake.
You close the doors and make art, laugh, scream.
You are not stupid: you see the lines drawn in the
sand and neatly step over them; you are the invisible
ghost of what they will never admit to wanting,
what you will never admit to having.
You know that rules exist --
they are not for you.
You refuse to hate yourself
your desires,
if you could be paid for them you would flaunt them.
It's a matter of money, really.
These are the things you will think
in a job interview,
when they ask you That Question.
Don't say them.
Lock your lips,
seal away the key.
You are not
romantic
forgetful
insubordinate
to be such would be
to be
human.
fallible.
You will lie.
You will be steely-eyed.
You will be inhuman.
And
you will get the job.
When you go on a job interview
you will be asked:
What are three words that describe you?
It's a stock question
(hint: they haven't prepared, nor read your application)
You should not take this question seriously,
never answer with the truth.
Do not tell them
you are a romantic,
you fall in love as easy as breathing
never learn from your mistakes.
You hate to admit it: the word
romantic is
childhood movies with Princes Most Charming and Princesses Most Beautiful who would rather lie asleep than go after what they most want;
movies with chance meetings and mistaken identities, with men who are charmingly rude and women who realize the power of love (almost) too late to be saved;
to be romantic is to be weak,
to be needy,
to be a woman.
(You/They forget
romantic is
to see the beautiful in the world around you,
to open your heart to new people,
to believe that every new person you meet is a new friend,
just maybe.)
Do not tell them
you are forgetful,
often found
stars in your eyes.
Don't let them know
you miss emails
lose your glasses,
you sometimes stop in the street with a dream in your head that blocks out all else
you've forgotten a thousand and one nightmares
anticipate ten thousand more.
You look at something red and forget where you are,
forget reality (cast it away)
for the slippery slick of blood at a murder scene;
you see clouds moving across a porcelain sky
consider how it would feel to roll and roil and tear yourself to pieces;
smell cut grass
imagine pristine 50s lawns
movie sets with pastel houses.
You forget
you have a body
lose your mind in the possibilities.
Above all,
don't tell them
you are insubordinate.
You read porn in your spare time
eat chocolate black enough to rot your insides
watch illegal movies instead of doing work,
get splendid grades anyway.
You write terrible prose
worse poetry,
words a piercing addiction you cannot shake.
You close the doors and make art, laugh, scream.
You are not stupid: you see the lines drawn in the
sand and neatly step over them; you are the invisible
ghost of what they will never admit to wanting,
what you will never admit to having.
You know that rules exist --
they are not for you.
You refuse to hate yourself
your desires,
if you could be paid for them you would flaunt them.
It's a matter of money, really.
These are the things you will think
in a job interview,
when they ask you That Question.
Don't say them.
Lock your lips,
seal away the key.
You are not
romantic
forgetful
insubordinate
to be such would be
to be
human.
fallible.
You will lie.
You will be steely-eyed.
You will be inhuman.
And
you will get the job.