It’s a warm morning

at the beginning

of the most recent

Financial year
I write and write

like it’s my job
I’ll never be this happy
I suppose

it’s bad

research to admit

I started a PhD to get out of retail
It’s funny

how the sense of what’s bearable

        adjusts itself
Every year aspiration reverses

dreams become… burdensome
At what point

did I pass the point

it was possible to become:

an engineer / sniper / tennis coach /

        No

my choices:

checkmarked / fated / I’m here
However

because of course the university

is at this exact moment burning

this is but a reprieve

and after four years

I will hold the record

        for the world’s most unpaid lunch
I’m not good for retail because

I’m broadly disinclined:

to speak / steam fabric / ask rhetorical questions of the wealthy 
But I fooled them by being gay

the sensibility suited to service

and raised aesthetic wisdom
We reside

in lilac plastics / stasis / decorative stars
One thing for which I am grateful

to this career

        is all the friends and managers I’ve met
Rhys, who rubbed my neck

and called me every night

after work
Ben, with whom I bonded

for sharing that privilege
Jordan, who worked for decades

on the same floor until

he turned into a shark
Max, my favourite

the fashion designer

whose shopping addiction kept him

though always on the edge

        of leaving
And there was me,

Sholto, who left proudly

adorned with artistic talent

straight past the security alarm

not caring to say

        what time he would be back