Words keep spilling from me

And I just cannot keep track

Like a forgotten dam, walls finally burst

No way to put the water back

I write in bed, on the bus, in the car

I write when sorrowed, days of bleak

I write when overjoyed, when starry-eyed

I write when I can’t find words to speak

It’s like someone has sliced me open

But instead of blood I bleed nouns, verbs

And atonyms and adjectives

oxymorons, conjunctions - words!

Words keep spilling from me

The dam is open, indefinitely

So I put these words down in pencil, pixels - font

And call it hashtagpoetry

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Get a real job, I’m told

One where you work 9.00am - until you’re old

Get a real job, you say

One with PDPs and proper pay

One with targets, paid holiday

Get a real job, for pity’s sake

But, I pay taxes, improve CXs

Send emails from three inboxes

I too know a few colleagues you might call toxic

I do PR and I’m a PA, a business manager who sorts financial aid

This is marketing, right here?

Tell me, where is this not clear?

My hours might not look the same as yours, and though I work from studios, not office floors

Please think

The next time you come to me to feel less stressed, distressed, duress

When I stand with you as you process, your work mess, keep you calm so you impress

On that big pitch

That if we’re honest - you won’t remember one year on from it

That my job is real, takes skill, has value, and if we honestly ask ourselves

Just Who

Benefits most from my unreal job, fake work, time in lieu, sabbatical, cop out, phase, lazy, hobby

That it’s you,

Just you

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I do maths in the pool

One length is fifty, means one hundred is two

Swimming is my teacher

The lido, my school

All these sums they pause time,

and in the pause I go slow

Five laps is Two-Fifty

Just five lengths to go

At the lido, it’s quiet

Save the thrum of my breath

And my limbs, pulsing, rhythmic

Only two laps left

I do maths in the pool

Ten’s a safe number I think,

But today I stop at sixteen

And yet, I don’t sink

Instead I float

On top of the water,

Skim the surface as I turn

My sums here don’t matter

Better lessons to learn

The water holds me, I am weightless

And when sunlight dapples my skin

I think perhaps I am beautiful, mythic even

Just dive in

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