Maya's Monthly Love Letters - February
I work in hospitality, so I’m paid to serve people coffee, which I do reluctantly but sometimes willingly, depending on how silky the milk pours or how kind the face of the person who’ll be drinking it. There are infinite variables which measure how much I enjoy that exchange - but that’s not the point I’m getting at folks. (I enjoy saying folks, but whenever I write it I hear it in a sort of gravelly American drivel of a voice which makes me think it’s probably not my word to say but I like to say it anyway). So I’ll be serving this coffee and the person lifting the foam to their lips will have no idea that mere moments ago I was crying in the toilet cubicle; head in my hands, my body a rusty anchor. They’ll have no idea what strength it took to tear myself from bed, what dark twisted thoughts wrapped themselves around me like mouldy snakes. The more saucy version of this is when you’ve been getting RAILED and you’re doing that subtle and knowing grin because that customer you’re chatting to at the cafe where you work doesn’t know you’ve had a tongue all up in your ear so recently that the saliva has only just dried. But, sadly, the orgasm / crying ratio is as always, pitifully in favour of the latter. Lately, everything got me sobbing and it strikes me as the most jarring in a front-facing job, where my body is exploited for minimum wage, where my body is profitable only because it has functions. For example, I am not paid for the kindness of my touch, the way I press firmly on my loves forearms when they are anxious and feel like they might float away. I am paid for how much I can get done in an hour, and how much I can output. Anyway, I’m not whining to you guys about minimum wage hospitality labour because y’all know the drill (I can’t really pull off y’all either I don't think but if I’m honest it makes me feel cool and always makes me think of my dear pal Sophie Alyce whose way too far away) and many folks have it far worse than me, that’s not quite the point I’m getting at - it's more that these days all my body seems to be able to take is the softness of touch and quiet, nearly empty rooms.
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