9 to 5

Thud. Thud.

She wakes up to the same noise everyday.

Every day at 7 a.m., she wakes up to the same mayhem.

Thud. Thud.

She scowls and checks her phone for “Things to do”,

Secretly hoping for a message from someone she knew.

Mindlessly dangling out of bed, with nothing great to look ahead.

Minty toothpaste. Bread with jam.

Her mind looping the same program;

Over and over for 25 years

Doing exactly the things she’d always feared.

Leading a life so aimlessly dull –

Broken by Google: “Traffic on your route is more than the usual”.

Honk. Screech. Beep. Trink Trink.

Argh, she hated such moments alone. They forced her to think.

Think of what her 10 year old self would see,

Through the glass of this bus if she had looked up at me.

What would she see?

Oh, I can already imagine the mockery.

A mockery of her dreams – To dance or to write. Or heck, do both!

Anything but this, this job that you loathe!

You wanted to travel the world, she’d say,

And become a stand-up comic on the way!

You wanted to paint the world with your smiles

And count your blessings in Jet Privilege miles.

“You’d promised!” she’d bawl, so broken-hearted,

Her questioning eyes unable to let go the departed.

Dreams.

Damn, you. Ignore. Ignore them.

Beep BEEP.

She is jolted back to reality.

To her mediocre life of banality.

Struggling to fit in- the bus is overcrowded,

Her tiny little self-standing in a corner, shrouded.

Shrouded, like the others sharing the ride with her-

Ignoring their 10 year selves, exactly as blurred.

With paintbrushes and ballet shoes and season balls

And cameras and guitars and vintage dolls-

With hopes filled in their hearts so naive.

They bear our curse for trying to survive.

Ignore. Look alive. Look alive.

Here comes your nine to five