Have A Good Day

I have a job. It isn't a good job, a hard job, a tiring job. It is a job. I work to get paid so I can live and work to get paid. And after every midnight shift, the walk home is a walk of shame.

You may be familiar with the walk of shame. You may have even taken one or two or twelve in recent months. You don't necessarily feel totally clean or proud of what you've done, but you know it was worth it. Or you hope it was. That is how every midnight shift at my job makes me feel. I walk home and wonder if I am really spending my time in the best way. Shifting my sleeping patterns to the undead hours, my eating habits. The sun hits my face as it rises over the diminutive buildings on the main street, a familiar roadway, and I wonder. What else could I be doing? Is there something I should be doing?

But it doesn't matter. I work to get paid so I can live and work to get paid some more. I feel a little dirty, a little self-disrespect. A level between zero and point-zero one accomplishment. Lost time. But it doesn't matter.

My workspace is tiny.
Tiny as a microorganism.
Minuscule is the impact
of the register's balance.
And yet I sit
with music on,
watching the cars drive by.