“These things happen,” they tell me,
a trite dismissal of a valid complaint,
as if I had merely been caught in a downpour
or watched my train pull away,
an easily rectified error of judgement
or spot of bothersome bad luck-
something inconsequential-
soon swallowed and forgotten
among the rolling of the days.
“These things happen,” they tell me
as they bat my disappointments
into a corner like a kitten
toying with a ball of twine,
meeting me with all the empathy and
understanding of a discarded crisp packet,
they have no intention of listening,
for all that they hear my words.
“These things happen,” they tell me,
then proceed to pour forth a barrage
of banal and inane complaints to which
I am obliged to feign interest and sympathy-
mundane details of mundane lives-
I long to look them in the face
and parrot their own line back at them,
to reflect their dismissiveness
and see how they take it.
