nanotalk

losing the difference between the days

the microwave sings a little ditty when your oatmeal is ready a tune that’s come to drive you mad, but you’re at the bathroom sink washing your hands no one else lives here to turn it off, so it sings.

the coffee machine hisses and sputters a bit as it finishes its job drink it black and put coffee creamer on the grocery list it was on there yesterday too, but you couldn’t face going to the grocery store carrying a plastic basket with creamer and avocados and white bread to the checkout lane and making nanotalk.

Hello, how are you. Yes I have the app. Don’t worry, I can bag my own. Over-thinking a two-minute interaction while standing like a hesitant sentry with a grocery bag in hand at the threshold of the front porch, turn around and put back on your slippers.

you teach- it’s your job- once upon a passion reuse old lesson plans, pace at the front of the room and hear your one shoe squeak all the expo markers are running dry again write automatically and make nanotalk.

About the same things again, once upon a passion Now muscle memory and nanotalk.

you buy lunch, and it’s too expensive, but you rationalize it’s the one treat I allow myself, Dennise you tell Dennise from IT she thinks if you were more disciplined you could buy a house. you don’t answer, just growing tired of all this nanotalk.

you think about calling your mom, but what would you say? everything is going great except I want to die. I feel alone — I see coworkers and friends and family all the time but these conversations are growing more repetitive than the emails I send every morning my every day is turning into nanotalk.

Notes

Fictional, perhaps obviously. I’m a college student and my life is pretty nice, not nearly this depressing.

Anyway, similar to my piece Man’s Finite Earth, the title of this poem is taken from a book in my college library.

I’m defining nanotalk differently from, say, small talk. The concept is the actions one performs every day, the conversations one has every day, repeated until they’re meaningless, or even infuriating or imposing.

I see this sentiment online from recent college graduates, especially from educators. That life seems stripped of meaning, and that displaced from a community, they feel alone despite all the people they see every day, because their every interaction is repetitive.

Also, I hate the song my microwave makes when my food is done. And I’m out of coffee creamer.

Thanks for reading!

If you’re interested in reading more of my poetry, check out my pieces someone American and sick championship.

To get notified when I publish, subscribe to my email list here. To support my writing, buy me a coffee over here!