My boss used the exact same words today

My boss used the exact same words today:

"This isn't working out." That familiar way

of saying I've failed, that I'm not what they wanted,

that my presence here is unwanted,

and it's the second time I'm hearing this phrase,

three years later, and I'm in a daze

because I thought I'd learned something, fixed

whatever was broken, but I'm fixed

in this pattern: I show up, I try,

I fail, someone tells me goodbye

in the same careful, corporate language,

and I become excess baggage.

The words are identical. Different boss,

same script. I'm the common loss.

I'm the variable that doesn't work,

no matter how hard I try, no matter what quirks

I fix about myself. Something about me

is fundamentally incompatible, see?

And I'll keep learning this lesson

over and over, each job a fresh session

in being told I'm not enough,

that something about me is rough,

that I don't fit, that I should go,

and I'll read these words again, I know,

in another office, another year,

and I'll recognize them, clear

and cold and final, and I'll understand

that this is just who I am—someone that can't

quite make it work, someone who reads

the same words of dismissal, who needs

to learn that I'm the problem, not them.

The words are always the same. I condemn

myself to this repetition, this refrain,

this familiar, specific pain.