What Your (Work) Desk Thinks About At Night

I am cold back here,
but at least the view is nice and I can be left alone.

The woman who sits with me, we just had our one year anniversary together in October. You can tell she enjoys the time spent back here. Reading.

She's got some FANTASTIC taste when it comes to books, not like the other desks that drone on endlessly about Alex Cross or, Heaven forbid, Kinsey Millhone.
No, I get to read literature. 
Homer, Dante, e.e. Cummings, Anais Nin, John Steinbeck, Betty Smith, Patti Smith....
Hell, This girl got through Nabokov in a week!
A week!
This chick is amazing.

She is, however, alone.
stuck in the back corner, under the air conditioning unit, next to the window.
Like a forgotten lunch pail, hiding in the back fridge for months, untouched.
Until she is barraged by her supervisor, about a mistake she made in a call,
about some paperwork she wrote up wrong.

She ends up thinking she's useless during these times.
She is never rewarded or acknowledged when she cleans up a coworker's mistake.
Never rewarded by going above and beyond helping every customer she talks to.
Every secret payment she's made to a strangers account, out of kindness.
She believes she's useless at this job. When, in actuality, she's the best rep I've ever seen.
Everyone makes mistakes.
At least the sun shines on her.
Always alone, but never lonely.

Maybe.
Because she sometimes leaves tear stains on my varnish.
Sometimes, she hides back here during lunch.
Unable to leave for the break room, no. She only leaves me when she really needs to go to the bathroom.

You can tell how conflicted she is when she hides back here. In her fort.
I can hear her, try and make friends but nobody seems interested.
She pretends to follow football so she has something to talk about with her boss.
She read all the AA books so she has something to talk about with her supervisor.
She even read a goddamn Alex Cross novel so she had something to talk about with her coworkers.

It all adds up to her. Sitting here, day after day, alone in her corner cubicle.
wishing for a friend.

I want to hold her.
spread my maple-wood desktop around her body.
use this L-shaped body like arms and cradle her.
To speak to her in the language that she gets.
That she wants.
"What did you think about this character?"
"How was your drive into work today?"
"Where do you want to go for lunch?"
I want to be her friend, tell her that she is not invisible.
Her heart doesn't have to be so hard when she's back here.
I promise you are interesting, I promise people like you. If you could only get over your anxiety and break out a little at work.
I promise that you're not weird.
You are okay.
I promise.

You can sometimes hear her mumble softly to herself since no body can hear her in the back corner cubicle, staring out her window.

"I am cold back here,
but at least the view is nice and I can be left alone."