kolmanlit

Identity

What should I possess?
I hold my identity (self) like a purchase.
An item to show off.
New suit, new dress, new patio furniture.
What do you do?
Are you enough?
Do you rate?
I am a man among my crew.
We look at one another while we work:
hammers, drills, typewriters. computers,
forklifts, delivery trucks, saws, nails.
The tools of the trade.
I wear my tough jeans, as tough as me.
I wear my hard hat.
What should I feel thereby?
"The child is father of the man"?  I wonder.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Santa's lap?  Santa's toy given?
My friends as a boy define me.

This identity has emotions.
Fun, sadness, depression, joy, anxiety,
excitement, competence and danger.
I am a lump of clay.
I am a blank slate.
I work at the counter of a Roy Rogers restaurant.
I am my uniform.
My supervisor tells me who I am.
My customers tell me who I am.
My paycheck tells me who I am.

What should I redress?

Should I try for manager in a year or two?
I hope to keep doing this, this particular job.

When my mother asked me at 13,
"What do you want to be when you grow up?
I answered, "I don't know."
The looking glass self.
Ha, ha, ha!  What a joke!
I had never really thought about a job.
My friends did not care what I wanted to be.
Now I ask myself, "Is that what I want?"
I fell on this job.
And I'm going to fall out of it.

I'm a lesbian.



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Identity

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