it doesn't slow down...it never slows down | Teen Ink

it doesn't slow down...it never slows down

December 9, 2009
By Anonymous

She’s instantly reminded of her free period in high school
Scrabbling terrified at the keyboard
Hoping to spew out something of some merit

Some report
On some article
On some something that she just looked at this very second--
--Fifteen minutes and counting before the manager walks into the building

She won’t lose her job, but it’ll put a black mark upon her reputed work ethic
And what the company says it means to be an employee in an office building
On the twelfth floor
In a cubicle
At a desk
In a broken swivel chair
Scrabbling

(…Madly at the keyboard)

She had promised herself she would break this terrible lifelong streak of putting things off,
Doing everything last minute.

But it was the kind of promise a mom makes when her child’s dog has “run away”.

(“Oliver will come back, sweetie, don’t worry.
Those tires squealing earlier?
That yelp sound?
That…was…the tv.
…Mommy likes her programs, yes.”)

The kind of promise that you tell yourself over and over to evoke some kind of bland faced hope—
--AGH, six minutes, help me…



This will probably always be a problem.


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