stuck

i navigate felt wall dividers, bland carpet and single-cup coffee machines seeking sanity. give me life, home for 8 hours a day! between emails i crave conversation, a few IMs about nothing, a huddle room haven where reality tv is on the agenda. let me veg my brains out. i will milk the system, i must. you don't pay me enough to give up my identity. i get my work done and i now struggle but hopefully still succeed at doing a great job. treading water, everyday i attempt a profit of productivity.

it's a plague in this city, an epidemic. i want to reject it, but it pays me too much to just leave. and so i dance. i spin, and twirl, and pirouette to the tune of this corporate blah, an anthem for doldrums, a monotonous anti-cacophony, ennui. i speak the language and forge the political campaigns. i build silly little class projects.

my salary allows me to pay for the $11 salads i consume, and the lost metrocards i replace all too often, and the takeout we order because i'm too tired to cook or too busy working to buy groceries. i get to see my little boy for a couple hours a day, because mommy is making the big bucks, taking melancholy trains home with frowning, pouting people.

admittedly i have a knack for finding little joys during these hours. it seems taboo but i do. if i'm going to reside in this jail camp, i am going to do the bare minimum, try not to look it, steal moments for myself, remember what camaraderie is about. and collect the big paycheck to fund our rent that has thus far surpassed the cost of my childhood home. the cultural benefits of this city are now sort of occasional, infrequent. i get by on peripheral doses.

and sadly, forget how to stay true to my core habits. the wellness i cultivated out west. the great mental clarity i had in my 20s. i long to rejoice, not recoil. to live now, and always now, and not just for those moments i can piece together.