Temporary Employment Status
by Andrea L. Alterman


I am now returned from my involuntary exile
of non contributory being. My name will once
more be spoken somewhere other than in my head
where no one else can hear the sneers I’ve associated
with my self, for being unwise in my belief in good
work as a feature worth saving for itself. My daily
round will be more than waking to sleeping with
little but worry and cynicism to fill it out. I will
considered useful until I’m not and then, when it
happens again, which it will, I will be excessed
like the useless thing I have always been, yet sometimes
I’ve been paid and honored, and lied to, to build
an exaggerated sense of my minor importance, but
I remind myself now, and will continue to refresh
this memory, of how expendable one person is
no matter how competent, I am just an expense
in an account which can be eliminated from
a bottom line that erases any associations that
were and means I never was and may not be again.






Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors.
No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author.