Mr. Bathroom-Stall-Phone-Call — "Yeah, I Can Talk"

Lyrics

[Intro]
The latch on stall three.
A clean, final sound.
I'm just trying to have a moment.
On a Tuesday.

[Verse 1]
A voice, too close to the mic.
"Mark here."
A pause.
"Yeah, Brenda, hey. No, it's a good time."
"Yeah, I can talk."
My head is against the cool laminate of the partition.
Brenda from Accounts is talking Q3 projections.
Her voice is bouncing off the porcelain throne.

[Chorus]
And the echo chamber of the third-floor men's room
Says what he won't.
The tile and the grout and the brushed-steel dispenser
Scream, "No, you can't."
But he's talking synergy, he's talking deliverables.
He's pitching a new paradigm from a private kingdom of Formica and chrome.
Yeah. He can talk.

[Verse 2]
Someone flushes in stall one.
Mark doesn't pause.
He raises his voice just a little.
"Right, the action items from the 14th."
The Dyson Airblade screams its reply.
And Mark just plows right through it,
Describing a pivot, a new vertical.
I wonder if Brenda thinks he's standing in a wind tunnel.
Or on a tarmac in Chicago.

[Bridge]
Does she know?
Does she hear the ghost of the automatic air freshener?
That little pssht of lemon verbena every seven minutes?
Does she picture him at his standing desk?
Or does some small, animal part of her brain
Recognize the acoustics of shame?
The sound of a room where no one makes eye contact.

[Chorus]
And the echo chamber of the third-floor men's room
Says what he won't.
The tile and the grout and the brushed-steel dispenser
Scream, "No, you can't."
But he's talking synergy, he's talking deliverables.
He's pitching a new paradigm from a private kingdom of Formica and chrome.
Yeah. He can talk.

[Outro]
"Talk soon, Bren."
The latch turns.
The pneumatic door hisses open, then closed.
And I'm alone again.
With Brenda's quarterly report.
Hanging in the air.