I feel sick with resentment today. Wet and heavy and choked.

What's the source? I don't know. A thousand cuts.

Sitting at work, stirring boiling dye in a pot with a too-thin bottom, because the production is too cheap to buy proper tools.

My boss, who gave vague instructions, then was annoyed when I interpreted them a different way.

Someone higher up the food chain, having a 'stroke of creativity', and changing the schedule with no notice, which flips and scatters our department like a card table.

The weather, heavy and wet, the road carpeted with puddles. My tires, half bald and questionable, but no time to buy new ones.

Discarded boots, just inside the door so I trip on them. Cheap and plastic and dirty, and sitting on a pair of my favourite red leather shoes.

The toilet paper roll. Empty. Again.

Dinner, cold, an hour old. Eaten over the sink, cold, because I'm too starved to heat it up.

My hidden bottle of painkillers, found and taken and left out in the open.

Look through classifieds for places to rent. Everything is three times the price of where I'm living now.

Can I afford it?

I'm never sure.

.

Rosie

Before&After