Repentance
To my old boss - I’m sorry for ever having been difficult when you kept giving me more hours. You were the best boss ever and I hope to grow up to be more like you.
To my boss’ boss - I hope you’ve grown up to be less of an asshole.
To the asshole customers I’ve ever said or thought bad things about - I’m glad I didn’t really slice you up, fatherfucker, and that you didn’t really choke on your crumbed barramundi served with roast veggies, crème fraîche and a slice of lemon.
To all the friendly regulars - Thanks for being awesome. I hope your toast orders are still the same because
I want my old job back if y’all will let me have it. Please, I’ll stop mixing the skim and full cream milks. I’ll stop stealing chocolate bars to give to my sister. I’ll try to look less unimpressed all the time which I know is very hard for me because that’s just what my face looks like but I’ll even smile at people who dump their coins on the counter and make you pick them up one by one like you really need to stoop for their two dollars eighty. That’s how much I want my old job back.
Because Hong Kong loved me but I spent all my money on expensive breakfast rolls from Pret-A-Manger every morning and commuted back to an empty apartment every night to cry into my take-out for one.
Because having a lot of free time just let me make a real mess of this semester. All I did was watch French YouTube videos and learn K-pop dances in my room trying not to think about how I don’t really want to be A Writer any more.
Because now I have to wait forty minutes in the dark of suburban nowhere waiting for a bus so I can start my hour-long bus trip to get to my hour-long train trip back home after four hours of dirty-dish water seeping into my left shoe, deciding I don’t want to see my friend if it means having to watch her make out with her boyfriend when there’s no one to make out with me. Staring across a dark street being spooked by the wind in the trees thinking, this is just a test.
