was the day I started working for TJX.

Twenty years ago tomorrow.

Who has jobs for twenty years anymore?

Of course, I’ve done a thousand different things in twenty years — managed a processing crew of thirty women from Latin America and Southeast Asia, a shipping crew of twenty, a huge temporary assignment of managing a group of 150 recently arrived Laotian immigrants who spoke NO English at all, a small quality control group, created procedures for the processing of fine jewelry, gotten my instructional design certificate, designed a million training courses, traveled and traveled and traveled to teach thousands of hours of stand up training on everything from forklift safety and hazmat regulations to criminal interrogation techniques (for our store loss prevention folks) and management and team leadership and project management and…

fuck.

And now I deliver feedback on psychological assessments and 360 degree rater instruments to executives and do executive coaching and organizational development and I still travel all over the map from time to time and…

fuck.

And I’ve had two complete breakdowns, a number of suicide attempts, a range of medications from mild antidepressants to full-on antipsychotics; I’ve given up drinking several times, cocaine once, dope once; I’ve gained 70 pounds and lost 42 (as of yesterday)…and I’ve gone back to school again…

fuck.

And I haven’t talked about poetry. And I haven’t talked about friendship, or love, or anything else of importance.

Twenty years. I’ve been married longer than that; so why does this anniversary feel so much more significant?

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Boot Knife of Love and Mercy.

Get yours.

I was also the Broadsword of Mild Reason.

Strangely, today I would have sworn I was The Bludgeon of Righteous Displeasure.

Martina doesn’t get it, I know.
It’s not the dancing that matters to you, I know.
The dance is a given.
It’s the choice of dance that counts for you.

There’s capoeira, for instance,
or voodoo trance,
or thrash with eyes
clipped open by X
after midnight in a sleek Hollywood hole.
I once watched a dervish turn his palms
up and down while wheeling himself around
the axis of the earh’s shadow,
and hope and despair fled together.
You could do that.
You could do any of that. I could see you
doing any of that.

Or: you could stay with me
and we could dance
the way we always do.
The way we used to.

Don’t go.
Stay.
It’s just a stupid song.