The Worker's Poem.

I am a warehouse worker, I fit in no square peg
My edges are round and fruitful
I stand on obese legs
I work till I am humbled
I slave till I am bent
My fingers they are raw, dear
My neck, it aches, a-burning red

I am a warehouse worker, I stand and repeat moves
Over and over I robot, until the break behooves
My master to shout out, “lunch, last box, or break”
And when that word is uttered, an echo does it make
Around the warehouse floor, the workers they do whoop

And dance and mingle vaguely, and chatter about their hurt.

We are the poor-caste workers,
We stand on pained legs,
Our backs, they are a-broken,
Our souls bent, distorted, strained

All we do is complain, yes, all we do is gripe
About all our suffering, injustice, and crime
Of the few against the many,
Those who can afford the things
We pack and toil over nightly
We covet and we see

The disparagy between our peoples
The many with so few
Packing for the richmen
Packing for, likely, you.
We like to cook, too, you know,
We like to share food with friends,
We are no different from you,
We just have so little at the end

For there are children to feed,
And divorces to pay for,
Health concerns too costly to afford
The likes of Le Creuset and Kitchen Aid

I am a warehouse worker, I’m tired and underfed
My weight comes from my allergies
To subsidized eggs and bread
I have so little energy
I cannot make it said
In adequacy, how angered
The rich have made me red
We packed $800k today
We packed and stumbled home
To bottle, to wife, to bed
Too tired to revolt.

An American Fairy Tale, Part 2

One day, Uglyman fell in love with a girlfriend. She was everything he liked in humankind, and everything he knew from the Disneytales to be a bonified, genuine princess. She was smart and talented, skinny and active, beautiful of appearance, at least to those few who saw past her unconfidence. He felt she would be his equal, and together they could harness the world and be two parts of a Whole. Princessgirl enjoyed her time with Uglyman. He made her laugh and feel special and beautiful, when most people had told her or treated her like she was not. He loved to do the things she loved to do, and together they made great conversation long into the evenings. Uglyman seemed to be almost perfect, but Princessgirl was holding out for that White-Knight-in-Shining-Armor she had been promised would be Handsome. She knew of many handsome men, but they did not hold her attention like Uglyman did, and most times they would either lead her on with empty promises, or shy away from her feeble attempts at romantic advancement.

The evening when Uglyman had gained the confidence to tell Princessgirl of his feelings. They were to meet that afternoon for a bike ride, and then share a bit of dinner. Uglyman had a beautiful afternoon planned, and he was going to tell her of his love after a meal at a gourmet restaurant that he had saved up for.

Princessgirl had never let Uglyman pay for her meal, because she had felt that he had feelings of more than friendship for her, but she did not know how to tell him of her feelings. Princessgirl was nervous to hang out with Uglyman, because she knew that one day he would tell her how he felt attracted to her, and she did not feel the same. Princessgirl loved Uglyman, but only as a dear friend. His appearance was not handsome, and so he did not fit her description of the White-Knight, thus she could not be his girlfriend, even though aside from looks he was so wonderful.

After the meal, Uglyman promptly paid the waitress quicker than princess girl could negate. Uglyman understood this deed as a knightly act of chivalry; Princessgirl was affronted. She did not know what to do with a man-of-action, and not many people had done that before. She knew immediately that the drive back home was going to be a hard one. Uglyman began to tell Princessgirl now he felt romantic love for her, but when he asked if she shared these feelings, Princessgirl just sat there without anything to say. She couldn't break Uglyman’s heart and tell him he was too hideous to date. She couldn't find the words to say that, because it was cruel. It wasn't his fault that he was born with those looks. There wasn't a whole lot he could do, he wasn't wealthy enough to have an operation to fix it, and Princessgirl couldn't be the one to break all this news to him, and to inform him that he was not the half of the Whole she was seeking. Her heart was not full of mean intent, but she was as confused about her feelings towards Uglyman as he was confident of his love for her.

This moment of silence between them lingered for what seemed like hours. Uglyman knew that the silence was a rejection of his proclamation of love. His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach, and his chest began to ache. He felt like he was trying to breathe underwater.


The drive home was tense and conversation forced. Princessgirl didn't know what to say, she didn't know how to act or speak about what had just happened. Her impish shyness resulted in little skills in conflict resolution, and orally conveying emotion was near impossible for her. She got out of Uglyman’s car and decided she would simply avoid him.

Uglyman and Princessgirl drifted apart after that. The difficulty of the dinner was hard to talk around, and life went forward as it always does. Princessgirl found what she thought was her White-Knight; he was handsome and able, interesting to talk with and listen to, but he didn’t make her feel like an equal often, at least not like Uglyman had. Uglyman pursued a life of chivalry, but he did so with a lack of passion and his actions were tainted with mediocrity, as he felt he would never find the other person to make him Whole.

Both Uglyman and Princessgirl realized all too late, as age had taken his action and her confidence, that two people cannot make one Whole. Wholeness cannot be sought outside of oneself, but can only be found within. No relationship with another will ever fill the hole made by hating oneself. Neither Uglyman nor Princessgirl learned to love themselves, and their lives were pained with sorrow until their final days.

An American Fairy Tale, Part 1

Once upon a time, there lived a man with an aching heart. His heart ached because he was of a comely appearance. Uglyman had many talents, gifts, and a big capacity for love, but no one would bother to experience those things because they didn't like Uglyman’s face. To compensate for his looks, or lack thereof, Uglyman delved into the athletic sports of his region, and did so with chivalrous intent. He became a paramedic and a firefighter, and he saved the lives of people in the outdoors. He learned many things, and completed many good and princely deeds of servitude. Uglyman was the epitome of the White-Knight-in-Shining-Armor. He was everything the cartoons told him to be as a boy, everything the girls wanted in a man. He was fit, he was able, he was intensely spiritual and profoundly thoughtful, but he had no beauty of face, at least upon first glance, which was what most shallow-people gave him before politely turning away.

Uglyman was writing his own way into the world. If his heart could not be given to a lady, he would give it instead to his passions of prose and point of view. He would seek acceptance by building his own life, and making a hole for his peg that didn't ever fit in the Valley of Dolls. His achievements would be many, as he was competent to harness the moon, but even then no one would give him the love he so sought. Not one girl would give him more than a glance, at least not for long.

Uglyman had been given little opportunity to understand the opposite sex. Very few had paid him much attention, and what girls that did flirt with him most times didn't understand their actions were taken as flirtation. This led to a general state of confusion regarding femalekind, which exacerbated Uglyman's shyness and unconfidence. To compensate, Uglyman amplified his assumptions of what was going on inside the minds of others. All of his psychic, empathic, and emotional feelers were out, and because of this Uglyman sometimes took things the wrong way, especially regarding the intentions of those around him. This got Uglyman into a lot of trouble with friends and with females, because most people mistook his shyness and lack of social skills for abrasive rudeness and passive-aggression. When it came to flirting, most women wouldn't get it, or would feel awkward at his advances because when they looked at his face, they mistook his crooked teeth and mottled complexion as a symbol of his character. As girls, they had listened to the animated stories, and had been conditioned to think that all ugly men were bad men, just as they had been in the films. As this conditioning was at the very foundation of his culture, Uglyman had never gotten past second base.