Tight Collar

The air in the lobby was recycled and thin,

smelling of floor wax and desperate men.

I had borrowed my brother's silk tie for the day,

but it felt like a hand trying to push me away.

I sat in a chair made of chrome and of lies

while a woman in pinstripes avoided my eyes.

She asked where I saw myself in five years,

and I couldn't say 'drowning in all of these fears.'

I held my resume tight by the edge of the sheet,

where the paper was softening from the humidity and heat.

My thumb left a smudge on the list of my skills,

a gray, damp mark of the climb up these hills.

When she said I wasn't a 'culture fit' for the team,

I saw my reflection in the glass like a dream—

a man in a jacket that pulled at the seam,

looking for an exit or a way to blow off steam.