Chewing through the 9-5

Issue 6

Sometimes I flirt with old men
When I’m just trying to be polite
Or talk just to remind myself that
I indeed still have a mouth
Nice girl
Sweetheart
Behind the counter
Nametag says
I’m the nicest in the room
The best at the game
But I'm a walking lie
Yet they take it
That face I hand back
With the unassuming change
So I feel grateful when I sell the final old man of the night
His twelve pack of bud and three slim jims
Relieved to see the sun sliding down the sky
Taking its last breath
As I exhale
Finally turning off the fluorescent headache
My hands locking the door shut
The final hiccup of the night
Swallowed and birthed into cough
As I drag my body home
Knowing the mess that awaits 
Dark and damp as a cave
That cavern of guilt
A warm mouth closing shut
On an almost word
Opening the door
Uniform collapsing like a set of bad lungs
I must refill in the morning
That part of me is dead
On the inside
I come undressed
I breathe oxygen that is mine and mine alone
The floor is an unkept scab
I pick at incessantly
The walls a mortal wound
I cannot cauterize
Inside I’m subhuman
A degradation of nice girls everywhere
Inside I don't laugh
I don't hold open any doors
I don't apologize
Inside this dark place
This comfortable catacomb
I push everyone out of the way
To feast on greed
My deathwish
My birthright
Before I'm resurrected in the morning
Only to be nailed to the cross of the minimart once again

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SIDNEY CRUZ won 1st Place of the Poetry Writing Contest. She is a writer from Chula Vista, Ca.

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