By Jena Salem

On this glorious Tuesday afternoon,
I will become the richest woman this
Backwoods town has ever seen.
It will be in the middle of my
Double, after a stocky middle-aged man
In his too-tight business suit and aviators
Hurls his boiling cappuccino square in my face
Because the steamed milk is not wet enough.
My manager, the one twice-divorced with a Monroe piercing,
Will soothe my aching burns with expired ointment
And dress my wounds in band-aids with sparkly butterflies on them.
I will take a well-deserved lunch break that’ll only last five minutes.
As I’m sinking my teeth into a half-rotted Red Delicious,
I’ll scoop up the quarter and scratch-off I packed as my dessert.
Absent-mindedly, I will scrape off each protective seal.

Gold pineapple.
Gold pineapple.
…Holy. Shit.

The beaten-up bar stool I’m perched on
Will clatter to the ground as I spring up
And let out an ear-piercing cheer.
The first thing I’ll do is make a beeline for
That cufflink-polishing prick.
Before he can berate me again,
My fist will ram into his jaw,
Sending a shiny gold molar skittering.
The crisp twenties he was shuffling
In his beefy fingers
will drift to the sticky floor.
I’ll gather up the fallen bills,
Stride over with the confidence he’s
Dedicated his whole life to mimicking,
and stuff them far down his engorged gullet.

“And keep the goddamn change!”

The joint will be stunned into silence.
So silent that you could hear my apron drop
after untying it and throwing it up in the air
like the graduation cap I never got to wear.
No one will dare stop me from swinging that door open,
Middle finger extended in place of a two-week notice,
And letting it slam shut.
The frigid autumn will chill the
Hot tears leaking down my cheeks,
trailing over my chipped teeth and drugstore lipstick.
Hysterical giggles will escape me,
Turning the heads of pedestrians,
who are clutching the pearls I could never afford.
Like a madwoman, I’ll gleefully skip towards my
Fifteen-year-old piece of junk
And jiggle the busted handle ‘til it gives.
I’ll careen down I-90 to the rhythm of a Madonna song,
Going wherever the wind takes me.
At long last, I’ll take a breath.
In, then out.
And I’ll breathe.

Biographical Statement: Jena Salem is an aspiring writer and a senior undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She is currently a copyediting intern at Blackbird Literary Journal and working as a student copywriter for VCU’s College of Engineering. Her work can be found on the College of Engineering’s website.

Artist’s Statement: This was written as an ode to all customer service workers alike. Please enjoy, and I hope this piece provides some emotional catharsis.