"The sort of thing that wouldn’t happen in the office" by Leia Butler

Fuck, he's left the milk out, I can see it behind his head. And this meeting is due to last an hour, and I want to tell him, I cannot stop thinking about the milk, but he's just started talking about budgets, and we aren’t doing well this year, and we need some new ideas, and was that a condensation drop rolling down

the carton? And I wonder how could this have happened? And should I say anything in the chat? Like “sorry to interrupt but I think you may have left

your milk out?” But everyone is nodding, they are talking about popping a poll up to discuss things

further, they are recommending a new Trello board, can they not see the milk? And I was meant to be taking notes for the meeting, but what the fuck how can I ignore this? And I think about how my grandma probably had a few

pints of milk in her fridge, she never knew she’d never finish them, I don’t know what we did with them. But now people are waving and he’s saying “there you

go, you’ve got 30 minutes back”, But he asks me to stay on the call so we can catch up, And he asks me how I thought it went, And I tell him about the milk, And he laughs “oh don't worry, there's nothing left in there anyway”.

Leia is a poet from London. She has a BA from the University of East Anglia in English Literature and Creative Writing. Leia is the founder and a head editor of Full House Literary Magazine. Her debut collection, Tear and Share, was released with Broken Sleep Books in August 2021, and encourages an interactive tear-out aspect. She is a previous winner of a Streetcake experimental writing prize. Her other work can be found at and in Babel Tower Notice Board, Re-side, and Streetcake. Her latest collection is due to be released with Stanchion in 2024.