Office Drone

I sit,
in my ergonomically correct chair,
and stare,
at the life draining mechanism humming on my desk.

The desk feels cold beneath my arms,
as I stare, at the line across my Trinitron monitor,
and wonder, if it is indeed a shadow of a wire
or perhaps, that is just another one of our stories we tell.

The walls, an institutional white, are scattered with Monet posters,
the edges curled from the most recent office move,
an effort to make this seem less like work, and more like home,
as if one could really fool the mind.

The plant on the corner of my desk is dying.

Perhaps the computer has decided
it must drain all life
from the room.

Haphazard piles of paperwork crowd around me,
eager to remind me that this is indeed work,
silly that I should want to forget,
and the phone at my elbow rings shrilly, dragging me
from my boredom induced coma
and dreams of ice cold drinks
on a beach
that is anywhere,
but here.

I lift the standard issue black telephone receiver to my ear as I stare
at the tiny numbers in the corner of my screen that tell me
I still have three hours
and twenty minutes
before I am allowed to escape,
only to come back
and do it all again
tomorrow.
This is not the life I imagined.

© Michele Markley 2002