application 17: hardware store
“Diatomas II” by Angela Wei
1. What do you want to accomplish in the next 12 months?
o Twelve months, a single slippery year during which I will
sit in a tub immersed by sprigs of rosemary. I will strike a
match for each day I survive, try to forgive the image in
my mirror.
o Last January I had a lover who let bananas go black in his
car. His plan: to be an actor in Manhattan, and I would be
the understanding girl with the messy topknot and the fox
tattoo that tagged along.
o I just need a way to pay my bills.
o Other (please specify)
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2. Where do you see yourself five years from now?
o Somewhere across the sea sit castles without caretakers. To
stay intact they need a savior, someone to play solitaire
with the ghosts and salt down the fungus as it skims across
dead stone.
o I tell myself I will be a writer. In the mornings I will put
pencil to paper, and I won’t look up until lunch. I will
write every day, even the hard days, even the hard years.
o My yard is a garden of weeds, bumblebees dancing in a
preshrunk dream of clover and dandelion. I make plans to
dig them out, but never do.
o Other (please specify)
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3. What ambitions or goals would you like to pursue at this job?
o At 4am, I find myself in the kitchen, my new love still
awake and draining pasta. The dark outside is the dark in
your old favorite book, but this is not what romance looks
like, only tired. I love her best the month I finally sleep.
o I pictured it for so long: fox tattoo, topknot that’s an artist’s
kind of sloppy, walking through the Trader Joes with
empty pockets but always enough money to buy the nice
olive oil.
o I’ve been told I work well with people. Maybe I can do
something with that.
o Other (please specify)
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4. How long do you see yourself working here?
o A week.
o A lifetime.
o Just until this whole writing thing takes off.
o Other (please specify)
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5. Briefly describe any physical or mental health issues we need to know about that could interfere with your ability to work in this environment, or prevent you from being a reliable employee.
o Last winter I said no to the rotten banana peels, no to
Manhattan and yes to a job in Seattle I didn’t want
anymore. I ignored my hair and bought the one-month
bus pass, and I scribbled endlessly but wrote nothing.
o Dysthymia (n.) A mood disorder characterized by chronic
mildly depressed or irritable mood often accompanied by
other symptoms (such as eating and sleeping disturbances,
fatigue, and poor self-esteem). – From the Meriam
Webster dictionary, accessed online.
o I wish for lingering summer nights when the moon reaches
down to kiss me on the cheek. I wish for simple meaning. I
wish for geese, flying through the sky with scarves beneath
their chins, tying them down for the winter.
o Other (please specify)
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About the Author
Hailey Spencer is a Seattle-based poet with a BA in English from Seattle University. She is the creator of three webseries with the independent production company Arsenic Martini Productions. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals, and will be featured in the upcoming anthology We Don’t Break, We Burn Brighter. She loves fairy tales and has a tattoo of Baba Yaga’s house on her calf.
About the Artist
Angela Wei is a senior editor for The Grotonian, a literature and art magazine, and the creative director of Circle Voice, a student newspaper. An alumna of Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Angela is a student writer at Groton School in Massachusetts. She has won various regional awards for her visual art, and her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Typishly, The Nasiona, Five South, and Cathexis Northwest Press. Angela enjoys baking, reading, and playing guitar, bass and piano. She lives in California.