Open Letter To My Boss

Please, do not yell at me.
I know I didn't do my job right this time,
Just like last time.
I know, I'm not cut out for this job.
Please, do not yell at me.
I work tirelessly
For five nights a week
Until my bones are weak and
My muscles fight in protest.
I go home when the Sun is rising
With my body defeated.
I work with all kinds of people.
With mommas, trying to feed their babies,
With convicts and criminals
With old men and baby- faced men
With immigrants who don't speak a lick of English
With a woman with a Bachelor's degree in business
With people who I have never heard speak
With people whose laugh I recognize from across the factory
With liars
With Christians
With Atheists
With brothers
With sisters
With Choctaws
With people whose language I cannot even recognize
I do not know what it is to reap the benefits of arduous labour.
I am not a rolled- up sleeve working- class hero.
I am a writer.
I cannot take apart a machine and put it back together.
But I can take apart e.e. cummings' work and figure out what he meant.
I cannot back a million- dollar industry with my hands,
But I can write a soliloquy made of no complete sentences
And make a million people relate to it.

I am not made of elbow- grease and the sweat of my brow.
I am made of staying up all night just to write poetry.
I am not made of oil- stained hands or black grit under my nails.
I am made of ink stains on my hands and smudges on paper.
I am made of 4am Spoken Words
Made of writing poems in the dark about my lover while he's sleeping
Made of haikus
Made of coffee stains on the poem I wrote about it
Made of a thousand words on any situation
Made of seventeen syllables on my worst days
Made of The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword
Made of collections by Plath
Made of crying at anything by Jeanann Verlee
I do not know what it is to take pride in my job,
But I know exactly what it is to take pride in my work. -xx