international woman’s day

you come to me on this morning
of international women’s day
text in hand
my glass ceiling breaketh
i write this on the one computer
i read this on the two computer
i have two computers because i work
a very silly job
to make my rent
i do not feel like a real worker
i write a lot about my work
i sometimes think i write so much
about my work to prove that i
am doing work
that i am doing a job
today it is international women’s day
it is also my brother’s twenty-fifth birthday
he is a quarter of a century
when i was a quarter of a century
i started graduate school
i was studying “creative nonfiction”
is this a job
i did have a job 
while i was in graduate school
studying “creative nonfiction”
i was teaching eighteen to thirty year olds
how to write a college paper
i was teaching what they call
“writing composition”
my life was composed 
of different kinds of writing
this was a real job
in a certain sense
the issue was my labor
was being exploited
but really this exploitation 
was borne only by the eighteen 
to thirty year olds
i could not teach 
to write a college paper
i had never taken this course 
“writing composition”
i fundamentally did not believe 
in the course
“writing composition”
i made thirty k a year
before taxes
this was considered a very good deal
for a “creative nonfiction” mfa
which i was undertaking
i was writing down real things
i was writing them
“creatively”
i felt fine being exploited
i didn’t think i deserved 
any more than i was given 
the thing is others were being 
way more exploited
the thing is most of my students
had it far worse off than me
the thing is i was situationally poor
but most of my students 
were institutionally poor
i didn’t know how to talk 
about capital
so instead i talked 
about commas
sentence structure
i encouraged them to write
about the things that made them mad
one of my students wrote 
about child protective services
another wrote about pollen
i told them to avoid
the use of comma splices
i told them to consider
how the adverb modifies the verb
i wonder now
was this worth anything
when i check my rate 
my professors page
i see my students thought
i was really really nice
i have a 5/5 rating
based on two reviews
100% of my students said
they would take my course again
they said i was “awesome”
and an average of 3/5 on a difficulty scale
they said “get ready to read” and
“participation matters” and
“she’s just very nice and welcoming”

you see
i’m just very nice
and welcoming
if i were not a woman
i suspect they would have said
this in a different way
people don’t often describe me
in any other context
as “nice” or “welcoming”
people have described me
in other contexts
as “confident” and “funny”
or “intimidating” and “intense”
but i am glad my students felt i was nice
i am glad they felt i was welcoming
because that means i did some component
of my job well
because i was rarely doing my job well
i was a quarter of a century
we were coming off a pandemic
we were “living through history”
we were sitting in rooms
that resembled prisons
architecturally
and i had been in many different spaces
besides these
i knew there were other options
but many of my students had not
been in many different spaces
besides these
many of them had been 
in their parents’ homes
for the past 3 years
in this same state
in this same part of this same state
and i was supposed to instruct them
on how to describe the world
using the proper sentence structure
and the proper balance
of dependent to independent clauses
i was the international woman
some of my students did not respect me
i understood why they did not respect me
i knew i was not doing a “good job”
like right now
i am writing this 
instead of doing my job
but when i don’t do my job 
i don’t feel i am failing
anyone anymore
back then i felt as if i had no choice
except to fail some of my students
i hated to do this
but i felt i’d be failing them
if i didn’t fail them
if that makes sense
maybe i am retroactively
framing this failure 
in this way 
to make myself feel better
maybe i was a failure
and maybe they were not doing their best
and maybe this was not the best situation
for any of us involved
for instance
i sometimes wished i were enrolled
in a “better” program
this program paid the best
this program “supported me”
better than other institutions 
and i had thousands of dollars
in debt
because i went to college
somewhere quite the opposite
of the college at which i was teaching
most of the people around me
were situationally 
and institutionally wealthy
really really really really wealthy
way more money in the positives
than i had in the negatives
by the time i graduated
but while i was in grad school
my debt payments were on pause
they just sat there
like lack in a jar
like the jar was half empty
like i was half empty
when i taught 
i gave away
as much of myself as i could
perhaps this was me
attempting to repay 
some of my student debt
perhaps this was me
not knowing how 
to be a woman 
in debt
perhaps this was me 
being “overall amazing

!!”
i don’t mean to brag
i find this amusing
i’m professor [            ]
i’m comparing myself
to this version of me 
i’m viewing on the internet

when i taught i told my students
to call me by my first name
or to call me a shortened version
of my last name
my students called me nothing
they avoided saying my name
they avoided calling me anything
to them i wasn’t really anything
except the ones who wanted my approval
they called me professor
they called me something
they asked if they could follow me
on instagram when the semester ended
but most of my students
avoided talking to me
they didn’t look me in the eyes
i understood
i had nothing to offer them
my life did not apply 
to theirs
i was an international woman
i was leaving in a year
and they were stuck
for three more years
in the prison
of this institution
that would take
and take from them
like i was taking 
all their time
and all i could give 
was niceness
welcoming
welcome i said
like a witch at the door
of a candy house
i don’t mean to compare 
myself to a witch
on international women’s day
i am doing my job poorly
my job is to describe life
“creatively”
is this working for you
do you appreciate my labor
do you want to write me a review
do you want to rate my confessions
i often said i was sad
when i was teaching
that they removed the chili pepper
on rate my professors dot com
i wanted to be objectified
i wanted to be told 
my students appreciated me
at least for something
perhaps this was me 
not doing a good job
at being a woman
i don’t always know 
what it means to do a good job
at being a woman
if i’m being honest
in some real way I thought that
if my students thought me hot
they might respect me a bit more
if i’m being honest
i think there still may be
some way in which that holds true
sometimes i paint my fingernails
like it’s my job
to look more like a five star 
chili pepper woman
but they took the chili pepper meter away
before i started teaching
so i will never know
i feel like i’ve been writing
for a quarter of a century
i feel like i’ve been learning
how to labor
for over a quarter of a century
six months after i finished my program
my student debts went off their pause
i make my payments every month
i can do this because of my job
which i am not doing
it’s international women’s day
after all
i am trying not to cut myself
on all this glass i’m shattering
above me
on the ceiling
on computer one
computer two
i didn’t mean to write 
a “feminist poem”
i never mean to write
a “feminist poem”
but today of all days
i hope you might 
forgive me