We were supposed to have a meeting this evening. It's 36 minutes past the assigned time. No one bloody cares, really. Because time here, isn't as valuable as the notes that one makes at the end of the month.

My time has been desecrated ever since I decided to live and work here. My skills and talents to plug holes that others don't have time or interest to fix. If anyone wants to know where to get that small item they require, or need a spelling or an extension number of fellow colleague - who ya gonna call? Moi.

I seem to know everything and yet nothing seems to fall in place. For me. I feel like I'm welling up with possibilities and like a helium balloon that catches someone's fancy for that one moment in time, I'm then let out into the open or left in a room to rot, until the very thing I was given attention for suddenly pales and is now no longer relevant.

It seeps out slowly, in whispers. And then slowly from that amazing height, I float down, bit by bit, until I'm crumpled in the corner and then crushed into a bin.

Self-pity.

My father told me it was the one thing that could destroy a person without even trying. So what do I call this reality?

I had ambition once, a vision that would help change the people and the sector I worked in. I was then introduced to the real world and the real corporate. It doesn't matter who or where you are. Unless you're at the source, can play politics and dress sexy - no one really cares who you are.

You can have all the talent, integrity, ideas and ability, but if you can't pander or play a little 'go seek' - no one's interested.

I fancied a swank office once; I'm sitting in one that can be. I fancied a great strategic job once, I've got one that could have been, I fancied the cover of a magazine once, but after seeing the lengths of compromise I have to make to get there, I can no say I don't want to anymore.

Because I can't smile long enough to make it look real. I can't engage in banal exchange long enough to make it look like it matters, I can't get along with people that really just need a kick up their behinds for their self-involved idiocy. I've tried and I fail so miserably, because even the uninitiated knows that I'm faking.

They all know. And they feel sad for me. That's all I get for showing them the truth. Sadness. Pity. And a little self-indulged pat on the back.

I believe being different beams you up to planet lonely. Where you get your own country and a flag. Only to realise that's a snow globe that everyone shakes when they feel bored so that they can watch the flakes fall around you. Double meaning intended.

Just a little bit longer.

Just a little bit.

Just a little.

Just.

It doesn't exist anymore.