the layoff

more the norm than the exception
in this wonderful capitalist rape room
where coming into work can mean
leaving early without a job & a
pink slip, with a pat on the back & a
“thanks for being such a good worker”---
armed with all the facetious nonsense
that emanates from the mouths of
higher-ups, whose jobs are just a little
more secure than your own,
making them bent further over the table
with the drill shoved so deep up inside
them that you couldn’t pull it out with
a fucking forklift,
if you even dared to try.

and on the day you come in &
they’ve taken away some of your coworkers,
leaving you “alive” as far as the workforce
goes (for one more day), you feel an odd
sense of guilt & blame, like it should have,
like it could have, like it will be you---
much like on imagines a survivor of a plane
crash sees the deaths of their co-flyers as
a precursor to their own fessing up to
that certainty of mortality,
you close your mouth with a sudden horror---
because these people were your friends,
as far as the workplace is concerned---
you’ve spent hours, weeks & years with
them & their fate has been decided with a
fucking red pen & a greeting at the door
when they were coming in,
because the higher-ups didn’t even have the
goddamned decency to give them a call
prior to the beginning of the work day---
so now, they hang their heads, some cry,
and in the eyes of all of them is a new
terror…a head full of “what am i gonna do?”
adding them to the legions of
america’s growing unemployed---
oh the wonderful “land of the free,”
where you can smile as long as you are
fucking
economically
viable.

tomorrow, they go online to file for
unemployment, to start the hardest job that
there is---
looking
for a
job.

and you miss them.
and you hope the best for them.
and you know the cards are stacked against them.
and you know neither obama or romney is gonna
fucking help them.
and you go to sleep so you can get up in the morning &
go back to the slaughterhouse,
hoping today isn’t your day (always tense & ready for your
time) &
hoping that wherever they are,
that they are ok.