Coworker

His breath smells

like wet cigarettes

stewing in their own decay.

There's something a little lonely to him.

He has a child's eyes and small gold glasses.

I'm not sure why I like his glasses.

They look like they once belonged to a dumpy wizard.

He must not be a bad man to a lot of people,

but he's a bad man to me.

His attitude is ugly.

Dominating, controlling and brash.

He sucks of life out of me every day, in small amounts, and shovels termites into the openings.

I don't think he even knows.

He is snarled up in a cocoon of abraded nerves and doesn't have the time to think about how his joylessness affects those around him. Only time enough to consider his own malaise.

Huffing, puffing and pacing, he quietly mutters what he will say next to the students or to me.

I pretend I didn't just hear, under a fog of gutter breath

what he will repeat to me in the next 5 seconds...

He told one class of students that he thinks

I am beautiful and he is not. Nor is his wife.

I pretended not to hear that, too.

It hurt me and made me feel ashamed.

Sometimes I find it difficult to connect with people.