Candidate

I have to sit on the other side of the laminate tomorrow.

I have to look at a kid with a suit that’s too sharp

and ask him where he sees himself in five years

while I try to forget the taste of styrofoam.

In 2011, I sat in a lobby for forty minutes

and chewed the rim of a coffee cup into a pulp.

My teeth left a row of serrated marks in the white

while I waited to pitch a version of myself

that didn't actually exist.

The resume I handed over had my own name wrong.

A double letter where a single one should have been.

I sat there smiling, sweating through my shirt,

pointing at a mistake I wouldn't see for a decade.