It is National Poetry Day.  Here is my contribution especially for anyone (male or female) who has suffered in a totalitarian work environment.

Hope you like it!  Poetry is such a great way to express imaginative ideas.

Justice at work

As the bullies come near in the playground

I go quiet, neutral.

Skirt length unremarkable, occupied

Don’t catch their eye

Hold my breath, wishing

myself into the brick wall

While my friend more reckless

returns the stare, sticks out her tongue

and runs off laughing

Miraculously unscathed.

In the very important meeting

With the very important customer

the gang leader

takes credit for my report, my analysis, my concept.

I freeze.

Guilt shame confusion.

Six years old inside my

Adult body – not too geeky

Not too gorgeous. Unremarkable.

Why can’t I be like my friend!

Suddenly I need to throw

the fat smug bastard

through the sixteenth storey window

hoist with his own glass shard.

I need to ram the biros down

passive throats

tear my report into confetti,

stuff it into every orifice

celebrate!

So I make an innocent but

intelligent remark

in a variety of ways

relentlessly

persuasively

until they eventually

get it.

The power in the room shifts, creaks.

The mast of superiority re-angled

Over our flagship idea.

They’re groaning and dying from paper wound

Fountain pen poisoning

Laptop leprosy.

Slumped across desks, rigor mortis

Set in mid-sip

“No sugar dear

must watch the weight” still in the air

not swallowed.

While the icy wind knifes round

the room through the crazed

discordant hole where no crack is permitted

in toughened glass.

I walk on devastation

In my red stilettos

Fish net tights

Frothy skirt

Tailored jacket

Laughing

till I am dancing

on the board room table.

Me and my magic marker

return it all to order

Without sideways glance

or heartbeat missed.

Space is made for me.

I’ve made a difference

To me.

my peace is a piece of me

top of my agenda

none of their

business.

Me and my best friend run off

giggling

to blow raspberries

with our bubblegum

and leave ‘em standing.

©  Jean Wolfe