An Ode to My Former Teammates at IBM Heya, so you know what I did? Took the day off to think about what was actually happening, was really going on behind the scenes, behind the screens and the gaslighting. I mean, I got up like any other day, let the dog out. Freshened her water. Made coffee for me and my husband, not necessarily all in that order. I took out my big bag of meds from my file cabinet that serves as a my homespun pharmacy, sat at my makeshift desk, the one with all the monitors and keyboards, lit a scented candle, dispensed my own pills, double checking instructions because you know how it is when you’re doing things first thing in the morning and you didn’t sleep well the night before. I put on my fat neck collar so I could think without hurting, tried to pen a short poem, but what do you think I discovered? The more I wrote, the more in pain I became, not just for myself but for us, how every fucking day was the same, an hourly enduring of tricks and lies. And I thought how we tried and tried again to fix it, to tell them what they were doing to us—only to be talked over, looked over, run over. And I didn’t think it fair. And since we’d been told, “Don’t come to us with problems, Come to us with solutions,” that is what I did, mapping out background and context and exactly what required intervention only they had the power to provide. And by the time the draft made it to y’all, well, you were good and ready to add three more pages, and by that time, we had eight, a litany of long brewed grief, the dark kind, the gritty kind, the kind recording each acidic moment, a diuretic no one ever asks the doctor for. And though the document was sent by the three of us, I took the fall for us all because I was the easiest target: older, vocal, experienced, the only remaining female, documented with disabilities, a half-Lebanese writer, completely expendable. And please don’t misunderstand, guys— I didn’t blame you in the least! It had nothing to do with our team or friendship, and everything to do with them, how they got back at me, surreptitiously setting in-person meetings, leaving me out of conversations, refusing to complete my paperwork, blocking, mocking until they got what they wanted and I finally had to leave. But hey, at least I had my morning glory, the easy sun through my big bedroom window, the pant of our crazy boxer who inevitably would want a walk. And so I took her, bringing my hiking stick and car keys, driving the short distance it’s still safe for me to drive, walking off-trail just in case we ran into another animal. Because the last thing I wanted was another fight for life, another excruciating case of resource guarding, snarling and bleeding over something like food on the table, bills paid on time, things like a god given right. And even now, I keep my vigilant dog on her retractable leash, writing my peaceful morning routine: candle lit, husband snoring in our old bed, our doggo waiting for breakfast. And while I am still in the fight for my livelihood, waiting to see the surgeon yet again, waiting to find what’s wrong with my limbs, why my hands shake, and I can’t feel my fingertips anymore, it somehow is all okay for now. Because they have to live with what they did, what they conspired to do, what they consciously took from all of us and I will sit here silently writing my life, listening to the new thunderstorm roll in like a spiritual, typing our way for us to justice, and believe me, guys, they eventually will pay. Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright April 11, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Poetry Month 2024
