Weed costs more now
which is honestly
the main reason
I went looking for work
Rent was bad
food was bad
everything was bad
But when an eighth starts feeling
like you’re financing a boat
you begin to panic
So I applied
for a job as a social media expert
I know absolutely nothing
about social media
I still call everything online
“a website”
At the interview
the guy asked
what experience I had
I told him
people liked my poems
on Open Arts Forum
He looked it up
He said wow
you’re established
I said yeah
people connect with my voice
Which is the sort of thing
you can say
when nobody asks
what your voice actually is
They hired me immediately
The next day
they told me
to make a TikTok
for some disgusting green powder
called Alpha Male Greens Extreme
They said
make it raw
make it authentic
make it viral
I thought
how hard can this be
It’s ten seconds long
So I took my phone
into the bathroom
I filmed my eye
my chest
my stomach
part of my leg
some chest hair
and one unfortunate angle
that included several pubic hairs
and half of my boxer waistband
I put it all together
with loud music
and text that said:
UNLOCK THE ANIMAL
REAL MEN DETOX
HE KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT
The boss asked
how long it would take me
I said
great art cannot be rushed
The next morning
they called me into a meeting
The video had four million views
But apparently
people had questions
One customer thought
the powder increased testosterone
Another thought
it cured baldness
One guy in Ohio
made a reaction video
without a shirt on
from the bathroom
at a Buffalo Wild Wings
The boss looked at me
like I had set fire
to an orphanage
He asked me
what exactly
had I filmed
I said
authenticity
I was fired by noon
Which was fine
Because social media
is mostly people
sitting on toilets
watching strangers
make fools of themselves
and clicking like
with the same hand
they’re using for everything else
