“Almost There”

by Desmond King

On Thursday I found myself with a bleeding tongue

Warm water washed over my soapy hands, blood filling my mouth 

I did not speak when he said

“We’re almost there”

My tongue is used to being bit open, to keep the peace

To keep secrets 

What does “Friday’s Eve” even mean?

Constantly looking forward, to ignore the conditions that sit between Monday – Friday 

Working for the weekend, 

I nod my head and hum in agreement “hmmm ummm”

My mind begs him to leave as the iron in my mouth dizzies my consciousness

I have built a dam between 

Work and Self 

His footsteps recede past a closing door

What does it mean to be almost be there?

Where are we going? A weekend? A two-day reprieve? 

Those words scratch at my ear drums

It implies an end, a destination

What destination gets me out of this hell? 

I don’t want a two-day reprieve 

To be sick is for the weekends, schedule to be sick then 

my body aches with rage, hair raising off my neck for attack 

My mind is in a frenzy, I have to rebuild the damn

Practiced words:

Health insurance. 

Rent.

Looking up from the sink, 

I smile and proceed back to my desk. 

I ignore the dead eyes, the clicking and clacking of keyboards, the unending wet coughs

Just make it back to your desk,

We’re almost there.

In this visceral meditation on labor, silence, and survival, Desmond King explores the cost of containment in a world that demands productivity over humanity. The poem unfolds in a corporate bathroom, where the speaker grapples with the physical toll of withholding truth, rage, and refusal. A bleeding tongue becomes metaphor and symptom—an emblem of the violence required to maintain composure, to “keep the peace,” to keep a job.

King interrogates the futility of living for the weekend, critiquing the illusion of escape embedded in phrases like “We’re almost there” or “Friday’s Eve.” Against the backdrop of fluorescent-lit offices and unending keyboard clicks, the speaker constructs an emotional dam between work and self, only to find it constantly cracking under the weight of suppressed pain.

This is a poem about labor as endurance, about the body’s protest when the mouth can’t speak. It asks: What kind of future are we promised if we can’t afford to be sick, to scream, to rest? And what does it mean when survival becomes a rehearsed performance, repeated daily on the walk back to our desks?

Desmond J. King (They/Them) is a multi-disciplined creative. They received their B.A. in Creative Writing from Northern Illinois University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Desmond explores writing, music, and art to try and understand themselves and the world around them. In their writing, Desmond tries to answer questions that titillate their mind. What is love? How do you heal? What does it mean to be Black and Queer in this lifetime? What is time? And more.

Desmond believes that documenting today’s conditions will lead future Black people closer to freedom and alleviate the pain of those who died too early to see it. If you want to read more of their work, please follow their blog, www.anuntoldstorytold.com.