The Suicide Questions

In a job interview
there is a category of questions
faced by all job seekers
a list of questions have come
to be called the Suicide Questions.

‘Tell me about yourself.”

Your fear of pauses
the terror of silence
the churning of fear
in your lower track
and that hyper drive
of nervousness
causes you to find a comma
and insert a paragraph
of self-revelations,
each of them Unfiltered
by anticipatory thought.
Your uneasy answers
have an effect similar to
burping the alphabet.

When asked about myself why,
why, why in god’s name
did I share that time I was asked
to resign. I wasn’t fired, so why
bring up being encouraged to quit?

“What are your weaknesses?”

Why did I give them a list?