Result of a Failing Gig Economy

Courtesy Gary Schoichet

my current job

is as momentary

as a twitter post

submitted

last night,

this

is the gig economy

full time,

nope

lifestyle inflation:

has me migrating for work like a traveling salesman,

but the financial crisis is paying me in snake oil

from georgia to boston, when my fight is to stay in new york:

“does temporary mean, i can care less about the job done

because this gig is up in less than a month”

“or does temporary mean i should try harder

so that i can receive more hours”

from subbing at the department of education,

to coat check at the museum:

i give visitors numbered tickets, like the pink slip

held in my hand during the start of the recession.

but 2008 was not considered a depression

because perhaps the quality of life today is not as it was in 1936

or because programs like public housing,

welfare, and medicaid already exist

or because people weren’t poured

into the streets lining up for a hand out of stale bread and rotten raisins

the truth is, rampant rises in technology distracted

us from the growing suicide rates,

and all of our facebook likes blinded us from

eviction notices on a neighbors door like empty dinner plates:

massive relocations of urban bronxites now rural dwellers

in unknown towns

massive relocations of urban harlemites now rural dwellers

in upstate towns

massive relocations of urban brooklynites now rural dwellers

outside of college towns

diversifying these small american streets,

with our black and brown skin sleeping beneath bed-stuy bought sheets,

the next generation lives on binghamton’s main street:

and their unable to identify with city life

like a caribbean immigrant’s child

unable to speak the language of their mother’s land

a 3hr domestic greyhoud bus ride north,

now equivalent to a 5hr international flight abroad:

too much to afford, too foreign to miss,

so this child’s culture is nothing more than a result of failing economic gig

or giggle?

but who’s laughing:

google

it sure isn’t me—

or you—

or perhaps it’s ai:

because now we define ourselves as a penniless

broken 4 dimensional being,

encompassing artificial intelligence via the conduit

of fake news and bogus headlines,

constantly being distracted from the real worries inside all our minds:

does 4g create cancer

does this make me sound crazy

or is my cell phone, laptop, wifi router’s radiation really that deadly,

why does the quality of life keep decreasing

and how does the rent-in-my rent keep increasing

why is the air full of ozone

while the only food i can afford is packed with gmos and growth hormones

there has to be a solution, there just has to:

but i simply

do

not

have

the

time,

you see:

i’m seeking full-timer dreams, and pension certainties

savory 9-to-5 schedules, and vacation with pay luxuries

only if this gig can dab a little temporary disability—here,

and splash a little life insurance—there

grate some zest from a juicy bitter paid-time off,

with some 401k to top it off,

but the reality is that my contract ends in two weeks:

so i simply

do not have the time to care,

about the lack of vitamin d in my skin, bones and hair

the countdown continues as my contract now ends in one week:

and this is all the

result of a failing gig economy.