WRITER’S RESUME
SERVER – Your Favorite Restaurant
(June 2011 – The Rest of My God-Forsaken Life)
- Provided prompt, friendly customer service to people who enjoy pretending I’m uneducated.
- Successfully applied skills such as operating a soda fountain or being looked directly through like a ghost or a hesitation for eight hours a day.
- Oh, you’d like another side of chipotle mayo for your medium rare heart attack, sir. Absolutely.
BARISTA – That Trendy Place That Is Overpriced
(August 2009 – June 2011)
- Demonstrated excellent personal control when asked if I knew how atrociously expensive our cookies are or why in the hell are we out of bagels.
- Endured the ever-present mating dance common to men who just don’t get it and young women who are stuck behind a counter. No, I don’t want to talk to you. They pay me to talk to you.
- Where I learned how to fake everything.
- We are out of bagels because you probably sinned today.
NANNY – Damn, Your Kid is Cute
(The Night He Was Born – August 2009)
- Successfully rocked your son to sleep in my arms 274 times. Taught him sign language. Supervised his first shower when he was six months old. I remember braving his tiny body against my own, feeling his heartbeat like a fragile insect. I guided his hand in and out from under the water and for the first time, I saw—
- Had to constantly remind myself that he was not and will never be my baby.
- And yet, it is almost impossible to train your heart heel like a good dog.
POET – At First, I Hated That Word
(since the beginning – when I have nothing else to say)
- So, what are your poems like?
- What exactly are you going to do with an English degree?
- Poetry is dead.
- I don’t get it.
- You seem really angry.
- Are you, like, always sad?
- So you actually make money at this?
- This: what makes my heart wake up and wake up and
- the only tattoo I was born with
- the only language I am fluent in
- what I pray to
- what I pray with
- from beginning
- to end
- it was never
- a choice
- Sierra DeMulder
