Tell me about yourself

Tell me about yourself

He mutters slowly as his eyes go over my handcrafted life

Caught in several pages of Microsoft

Oozing out of the A4, unhinting at what I should say.

I try to recollect what part of my childhood would help him solve the puzzle

Of who I am today

And why I am sitting here

In one of the several rooms of handcrafted routines.

I linger a minute longer on school days

And wonder why I had forced myself

Out of all the threads of friendship

That pulled me out of puberty

Why I had left those handcrafted weaves

Of limitless needles, pinching me through girlhood

His eyes keep searching mine as I come nearer

To the years of today

But drift further from any hopes of a coherent answer

His keen expression betrays the impatience

That I hear in the fluttering sounds of those sheets

Which I had handcrafted over limitless nights

Piling my days of necessitated effort

Into a sequential series of clear mindedness.

He utters once again as if I had let myself forget

Tell me about yourself

As I sink deeper into me and repeat

Tell me.

I am sir, well suited for the job.

He smiles and says

I can see Mam.

But I insist

Tell me about yourself.

I open my mouth and let the sounds escape

As our eyes meet in a familiar state of unknowing

I am a girl Sir. And I'll be leaving now.

I rise with nervous courage

Trembling in its birth

Arms shuffling over the handcrafted mahogany

Hands reaching to learn handcrafting.