Domestic Concerns

Lenin is floating down a fucking river, Trump is in the White House, there are people dying more and more, there are bombs and global disagreements and people have started feeling things-in-their-bones again. 

I've learnt that I really hate questions. I hate having to listen to them and I definitely despise answering them because everyone likes to think that they've come up with something deep and profound when really it's a regurgitation and rearrangement of what someone else has said. 

I don't like facing facts, they're cloying and annoying. No one can get jobs anymore, least of all me. I'm tired and idealistic. I believe in a single payer healthcare system and college-for-all but look where that got Bernie. Most of all, I'm hungry. How did I go so wrong? I started out on a full stomach, and I had good intentions. I wanted to help people now I'm just another blue-collar dispensable fucker with no convictions or concerns besides when I'm gonna get my next paycheque. 

I don't even like my job, but then again who does? I sell insurance policies to poor schmucks like me, they're just on the opposite side of the grey table, and rip them off. We both pretend we've done each other a solid- I pretend that the nice lady has just bought a great nest egg or whatever it's called for her son or her daughter and she pretends she's got the good end of the stick. That way we can both sleep at night. 

I'm still a child at heart though, really. I get scared when I have to talk to people on the phone and when I have to pay my taxes. My heart sticks in my throat when the doorbell rings unexpectedly and I always turn around looking for my parents. I don't like taking the train because I'm short and still look like a child. Economic insecurity accelerates the ageing process, however, and I've started smoking to deal with my problems. I worry about rent and when I meet with my friends, we only drink coffee. Or vodka. It makes my teeth yellow.

Lenin's floating down a river, and I am a corporate sellout. I sold my soul to the company store and I didn't even ask for anything in return. I lived in America, for a while which would have been great, except it's not. I don't think most people like immigrants here. Here, here, the US of A. 

I had to go back, man. I just had to. Who am I talking to, who am I talking about? Me myself and I. When I'm at work, I have to talk to myself so I don't go slowly insane. I ask about the weather, it's always the same routine because I have a ladder to climb and I might lose my job if I drop out of the machine, If I stop being a cog. 

And that would be the worst thing, because as much as I hate my job, and as terrible as the pay is, I need it. I don't like crying either but sometimes it overtakes you. Sometimes I sneak into the bathroom which is all cold-tiles and grey minimalism and sob. The shrink I used to see once a week said it was all in my Head. 

Her name was Deborah. Deborah Schulman. She had very nice, straight, white teeth like she could eat glass and her choppers would slice right through them. She used to sit back, recline, in her big red plush sofa chair and write down things I said. She called me astute once; said I had a real gift for watching people and noticing their 'tics'. 

'Thank you, Deborah. It means a lot to me," I said in a whisper voice.

She looked very gratified. 

I don't see Deborah anymore because I'm not in America, I've come home. And as much as I hate to admit it, I miss America.

I hate feeling this insecurity, this halfway and never belonging sense. This being there and yet being away sense, the persistent, unshakeable feeling that someone looks at you but never really sees you. They never said my name right. I asked them to call me Mun, but even that fit imperfectly, like a too-big-coat.