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:
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.
