I'm 18 and aching and I don't know why.

All this week I've been the legal secretary for these 2 real estate partners in the firm who do all contract and negotiating stuff (versus the litigation guys I worked with the week before). One of them gives me enough work to keep me busy for almost half a day. Usually closer to one-third but I can stretch it out. The other attorney usually gives me one task in the morning, that is often scanning a file to PDF and e-mailing it. But on Wednesday he gave me a new task to do – here's $10, will you go down to Corner Bakery and get me a chopped salad because I need to be on this conference call? Ok, sure, whatever. I don't mind getting paid to take a walk outside. I can laugh about my place on the ladder as errand boy and temp. But then I came back and delivered the food and change (and wondered if he would tell me to keep it, though doubting it severely), and he gave me another dollar bill and said, do you know where the breakroom is? Can you get me a diet coke with lime? And a glass? And ice?

I had to walk down the hall and fetch his beverage. Now, I feel demeaned. You could at least just say "get me a soda, bitch" and I'd maybe respect you more.

Then of course today, he comes out of the office with some other guy from a meeting and is all "just the person I'm looking for!" and then asks me to fetch the guy a mug of black coffee.

On Wednesday I made a new office friend, this woman who lives in Logan Square and also works in a piano bar in Wicker Park and I came out about doing drag which is sort of like also coming out as queer. On the way back from the breakroom, I leaned into her cubicle and said, "I'm so glad I got my master's degree so I know the proper was to fetch coffee."

But hey, I'm only ranting, cause fetching coffee sends me to writer's conferences and into the woods, so there are advantages. I just wonder at one point will I once again say, at what cost?

elements

Once, before they bought out oblivion,
I ate a candle flame.
It tasted better than I expected.
Not smoky as you might think.
No, that happens later, when it goes out.
Smoke is the fire fleeing when the flame extinguishes
And houses or forests or piles of leaves burn,
It is the flame fighting its own extinction in the form of proliferation.

Once, before they bought out oblivion,
I drank a stone.
It was cold and smooth like whiskey
Went down with the same variation of the liquor,
Which depends on brand, years aged, hour of the night.
Stones sit in the belly the same and
Add gravity to the situation of the body.

Once, before they bought out oblivion,
I cried a finger.
It streamed down my cheek to my lips and shushed
Me before tapping out the Morse code pattern
Now extinct to all but American Civil War veterans,
It tapped and tapped and tapped
And spelled out the word
Listen.

Once, before I leased my spot in oblivion.