The cold dark of these passages swallows you in on your first day,

You introduced to various faces, some welcoming some mundane.

I don’t know whether to sit or whether I should stand,

I’m waiting for a nod, an instruction, even a command.

I’m struggling to fit in. I don’t know if it’s my age,

cos my personality was never a problem, I love being the centre stage.

So I fetch my key to unlock the room where all my experiences will be birthed

An erratic burst of excitement, like electricity in my veins

Not sure if I’m hot, neutral, or unearthed.

In the kitchen to make tea, colleagues throw an occasional chitter followed by a chatter,

the technical service men benignly flirt, an unexpected flatter.

I scurry to my office, so embarrassed and forever bored.

This can’t be life, everyday feels like a damn chore.

I feel this isn’t for me.

Why?

Cos everything here is so bureaucratic and institutionalised

No room for creativity or change, everything’s run according to the so called wise

And then I remember that God does things for a cause,

It’s not always about shining and getting the applause.

Sometimes we need to sit back, watch and draw from the academics

To avoid, in the future, the brainless and cliché gimmicks

So this is a start, and for a while it felt like the bottom

But it is with “experience” now that I appreciate the gruelling warren.