It’s Day 2 of Open Enrollment

Poem

I sit in a chair and face the corner of a cubicle for eight hours a day since it’s enrollment time for benefits
It’s noon and we’re already 200 calls deep
Enroll my spouse, they say
My husband this
My wife that
Our family that
And I weep on each call for the family I don’t have for myself
To just be me and not someone’s bride
Someone’s treasured person
And yet I still calculated how much it would have been to put you on my health insurance plan
Toggled with the beneficiary information in the resource center
Dreamt about what submitting a name change would be like
I couldn’t help it
And instead what came out of it was this
And it’s only Day 2

 

more by Kristen Green

photograph by Daniel Zaleski

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