My Own Spaghetti

I'm sitting sweating buckets under the roof over my head

Reading a Twitter thread

On the phone my parents pay for

About how some people can't afford to work

It makes it harder to justify the choices I've made

To sit here letting my ass melt into the bed every day

I've got an email and a number and a WiFi connection

Decent looking clothes, access to public transportation

A Bachelor's degree hanging on my fucking wall

Looking down at me, watching my brain cells rot

Calling me out, saying if anyone can write a cover letter it's you

You've really got no excuse

Lack of experience? Self-induced

But I've frozen up in every interview I've managed to get to

Because I never had to study until I got to high school

And this test has questions I don't understand

Looking for answers I don't have

Making intriguing demands

For a service job I'm sure a few people really want

But those are the ones already working three jobs

And I'm great at bullshitting literary essays

But when it comes to myself, honesty's the only way

So as I spend each day waiting, self-deprecating,

Hating my procrastinating,

Feeling destructive as my motivation's fading

If I ever get up off my ass and onto my knees in front of management,

How will I remember my good qualities?

I know they're in there somewhere

And I know each day I lay here they erode

But long ago I lost the impetus to explode

I like to roll along watching windows close

And hey, maybe I'm focused on my art

Maybe this is a creative choice

I'm laying siege to my voice

And once I've starved it out,

It'll shout louder than ever before

Bouncing off the cavernous crevices of my closed bedroom door

That's how connecting works, right?

That's how you get seen?

Scream into the screen

And let the words seep into the seams

Stitching themselves into the web that tangles our minds and tongues

Don't stare at that blue light too long, or you might start to go numb

And not notice that you're choking on spiders

But they're not eating us, they're suffocating inside us

We have the power, and some choose to abuse it

I can only hope that one day I'll find the strength to use it

That day could be this minute

Shouldn't throw away these shots

I make my own spaghetti

And I'm not scrappy or hungry enough

To get tough

To grow up

To realize that setting my problems in verse doesn't solve them

And while it's nice to recognize the guilt stinking up my privileged ass

Being a lazy squeaky wheel won't help the reputation of the middle class

I am equipped to get a motherfucking job

I can afford to bitch about how it's so hard

So I can spin silky societal spider metaphors

Or stir my stumps, slap the sidewalk, and smack down some doors

I'll start by adding alliteration to my special skills

And I won't stop until I find someone who knows how that could pay the bills

Ha! It's all frills

I'm just stumbling around

I can't find an impactful ending

While I still feel half-drowned

Won't make New Year's resolutions in early July

For the same reason I don't make them any other time

My work ethic's an illusion

Perfected to trick the academics

Into coughing up more cash for me

The truth, as I've learned it, is simple, clean:

Other people hold me to things

I don't hold myself to anything