I'm an archivist. I left an accounting job to enroll in library school and graduated last May. The crux of the matter is that I live in Boston. This city is saturated with library students, graduates, and professionals. I have to fight my way to the top.

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Because of this, I've been unemployed since February, and even while it was not unexpected, it's been tough. Living off what savings I accrued working this past summer at Harvard University, pinching pennies, determining if I really do need to pay my cell phone bill (the answer is yes; the answer is always yes) I'm lucky, at least. I have a roof over my head, and my roommates are certainly not going to kick me out. While they might complain, they'll usually pick up groceries on the weeks I should.

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It's odd sometimes, recognizing patterns in your psyche. I spent the two months prior to the unemployment too stressed to sleep, reading or staring at the ceiling until three in the morning, waking up at eight. Feeling as if I was walking around in a fog. That stress is gone, eased into the beginning of despair. That slowly growing feeling of wondering – is this my fault? What if I'm not trying hard enough? What if I'm looking in all the wrong places? What if this is me failing?

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Poetry is not going to help. Fiction is not going to help. Gritting my teeth alone is not going to help. So, I fall into patterns.

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I find myself not always eating as much or when I should. I've reached the point in the cycle, where I'm not sleeping too little, but too much. I'm feeling myself more withdrawn, less able to write what I want to write. That's the largest difference here – not always being able to write.

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Still, this is not a breakdown, I keep telling myself. This is depression. There's a difference. I console myself with everything I'll do once I have a job. Pay off my immediate debts. Start studying martial arts again. Start building my savings. Travel.

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I keep pushing back my deadline. Originally, it was last October. Now, it's by my sister's wedding in late-May.

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Poetry will always fall into the cracks - cracks and fractures, which I thought healed over. I'm forcing the words out one by one, and hoping they spill onto the page in a way which equals something more than just words. I write of the golems and dybbuks, because, at least in writing stories I grew up on, I can find comfort.

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This too shall pass. I know that. I keep the reminder above my desk. Framed words of wisdom my great-uncle gave me for when I finished my baccalaureate.

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“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

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They are words I have lived by since I was seventeen, and I am, if nothing else, persistent in my endeavours. In the meantime, I keep on. I'm keeping my fingers sticky in the library cookie jar. I'm constantly poking contacts and friends in the business. I'm trying my best to remain positive.

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Nothing else one can do, except continue to write.

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Cracked

With the fervor I've been writing recently,

you'd think something had broke, which is,

perhaps, the cypher I seek. I've fallen

by the wayside, jumped off the cliff

years and years ago, and have been flying

since. I've shoved the issues to out of space,

and glossed over what I should have not.

It's not that I'm not thankful for the

emotional dam, the inspired creativity

after a dry spell, but I could do without the

frantic typing, the lurking panic attacks.

I suppose it is too late to say I've learned

my lessons, that I'm finally taking such

other matters into my own hands –

get my head on straight, or straighter,

push past the anxiety, self-deworth,

and uncertainty, figure out

where everything first cracked,

slowly mend the fissures -

and I'm all too aware such processes

will take time, and darling.

.

I'll come through,

because I have perseverance,

and for once, I will land on my

feet.

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Stefanie Maclin's poetry and short fiction has appeared in several publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including Under the Radar, The Maynard, Doorknobs&Bodypaint, Astropoetica, Star*Line, The Linnett's Wings, Underground Voices, Battered Suitcase, and Poetica Publishing's Mizmor L'David Anthology: The Shoah. She has guest blogged previously for Poetica Magazine. She has work forthcoming in Illumen, Ashe Journal, and Skive Magazine. She has recently completed her Master's degree in Library Science/Archives Management and is working on what she hopes will be her first full-length chapbook, a work she is tentatively titling Descent. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor