Office Worker By Day And Superhero By Night?

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Office Worker By Day And Superhero By Night?

{Photo via Tumblr}

I contain multitudes

Some days I leave the office and feel like a superhero from one of these Marvel comics

all I want is to be normal and live a normal life like everybody else

but I have these superpowers

one of them is vulnerability and lately I read a lot about that being a superpower

honestly, I think it is f***ing overrated

more like kryptonite poisoning on top of everything constantly falling apart

Other days I feel like a singer in crowded pub on a Friday night

standing there with my guitar and singing my heart out and people just being busy with themselves, ordering the next beer, chatting with friends and trying to impress the double D bartender (who is not listening either)

one left foot moving rhythmically in the entire room (and the owner of that foot is queuing in front of the bathroom, so maybe not about the music at all)

Then again there are days where I feel like a sailor

sailing though the oceans of this world

from continent to continent

country to country

from one cargo capital to another

not clinging to anything and always on my way to the next destination

without a place to call home

traveling in a tiny vessel that so far has survived all storms

There are also days where I feel like a stranger

talking in a different tongue and with a different frame of reference

and even though I use the same words as everybody else there is this faint accent

a sound that cannot be pinned down to any specific geographic location (Are you from Russia? American? You must be Swedish! Parlez-vous français?)

The multilingual product of an open world that does not fit into any boxes

Once in a while I feel just plain stupid

I simply do not get it

Why worry about a promotion?

Spending hours discussing cars

or football

or even refrigerators

and oh: he-said-she-said

and what was on tv last night

All kind of stuff coming and going

I actually do care about stuff (a lot): Friendship, good food (and no, you do not need a high-tech kitchen for that), books, kindness and compassion, going places

that kind of stuff

And now and then I feel like a spy

the silent observer of things unsaid

the tensed muscles in a jaw

flinching fingers under a table

eyes making brief contact across the room

a rigid body frame that does not match the casual words spoken

the hidden fabric of what binds us together and tears us apart

the very softness and fierce steel of our reptile parts

Most days I go for silence

in midst of all the noise

the drama

the need to make a meaning out of everything

and the world endlessly passing by

No, I am not a rock star

my superhero cape is severely torn

I am navigating with a GPS making up my own coordinates

in a language of my own

observing with awake awareness

always having to create my own space

Every day

every single day

I am human

just entirely human

lost and found

weird and witty

flawed and cherishing different flavors

in and out of tune

quirky and most of all damned stubborn

and sometimes

some days

a silent spot in all this.

*****

Harriet Grabow is a multilingual poet. She has published poems in German and Spanish in several literary magazines and anthologies (e.g. Jahrbuch der Lyrik edited by Christoph Buchwald and Uljana Wolf, Transversalia: Horizontes con versos edited by Rike Bolte). She aims at creating a piece of art every day. Some days it is a poem, a story, a song. Other days she is practicing the art of cooking, walking, listening, Yoga and meditation. She lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. You can find her on Facebook.