How tired we feel, my heart and I !
We seem of no use in the world ;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently ;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep ; our tears are only wet :
What do we here, my heart and I ?
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend ;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Please be advised on this 15th day of December 2020, that I do declare publicly that I have no appetite for being treated badly by the same persons in the same manner using the same methods that have been used to treat me badly on a previous occasion or occasions, and that it is my most strenuously asserted right to refuse any actions that have the semblance, manner or insinuation of comprising such bad treatment, and to thereby alter the trajectory of my experience and circumstances to a more beneficial outcome.
Look upon this
It is the face and shape and form
Of my loneliness
Look upon this
It is the shape and form and face
Of my keening anguish
Look upon this
It is the form and face and shape
Of my desolate loss
Know this
As you look upon this
It is the face and shape and form
Of many moments
That did not rain softly upon me
That did not alight as blessings
That did not pass lightly from my life
But it is not
It has never been
The face and shape and form
Of my consenting
Silence
More than anything
I don’t understand
why any of these privations
could have should have would have
been necessary.
I just don’t understand
what value
what benefit
what meaning
is attached to anything
that has been done.
It’s one thing to bear the weight
of the blows as they
fall upon me.
But it’s another burden again
when the sense and purpose
in those blows is absent.
What can I do with this?
How can I arrange the pieces of
this interminable experience
so that they are shaped into a form
that I can comprehend?
How can I assemble these
unruly painful fragments
into a whole that is
kind enough in its angles and
gentle enough in its sharp facets
to permit me to dwell therein
without being shredded anew
in each small movement
that I take?
More than anything
I don’t understand
and it hurts.
Do you understand? Do you really understand what it is like to be paid nothing? To receive nothing, despite all your time, energy, effort? To accrue expenses in the conduct of your actions, and receive no compensation at all, no petty cash, no expense reimbursements? Do you understand what it is like to write job applications, over and over, and despite your skill and well-wrought words, to be disregarded again and again? Do you understand what it is like to achieve, to be solidly successful in your endeavour, and then to be turned away without reward, without even payment for what it is you have done? Do you understand what it is like to feel the pull of required actions that you are no longer able to fund and therefore are now unable to do, because you have no money? Do you understand what it is like to see the people who, individually and collectively, led you to this place succeeding in their endeavours, and being rewarded and recompensed for it while you are provided with less than nothing? Do you understand what it is like to have no income, for an awful, terrible, relentless period of time, and to have no adequate explanation for that monetary exclusion? Do you understand what it is like when all your meagre savings have run out and there is not enough to live on each fortnight, so you don’t? You don’t buy what you need and you don’t have what you need and you don’t do all the things you need to, because there isn’t the money and there isn’t even the help that was promised? Do you understand what it is like to make sure you put petrol in the car every fortnight even when your teeth are bleeding and your gums are blistered with decay? Do you understand what it is like to know that you will turn up, every time, even though you haven’t been paid, not even once? Do you know what it’s like to stand at the checkout, repeatedly, knowing that your groceries will cost more than the money you have, and you are going to have to put some of them back, again, even though you need them? Do you understand what it is like to be made poor while others profit from your skill? Do you understand what it is like to be so good at what you do that so many people profit from it that they, individually and collectively, perpetuate a state of unmet need in you, so that you are forced to do it, over and over again without ever receiving even the most basic monetary support? Do you understand what it is like when people have looked you in the eye and asked you to trust them, and you have, and then they go about their lives for months and then years, without even exercising the most basic decency of ensuring you are ok? (I’m not ok, by the way). None of you have asked me, but if you had, I would have told you, very honestly, that this is an impost not only against my financial wellbeing but also against my freedom to live the life I choose for myself. Do you understand what it is to have an invisible cage built around you, made of purposeful economic exclusion? Do you understand what it is like when the cage is held there by every person who should care, but who doesn’t? Do you understand what it is like when that cage is kept there by people you care about? Do you understand what it is like to be betrayed in this way? Do you understand that the pain of this is devastating, on every level?
I wish you could see how small my life has become,
how bounded, how constrained.
I wish you could see how limited my view is,
in this small house, through this ugly window.
I wish you could see how I have been reduced,
segmented, chipped and whittled away.
I wish you could see what I can't see anymore ---
the spacious possibility of my vision,
torn down into a mountain of rubble.
I wish you could see how foolish I have been
to believe that it could be better,
that my actions would result in something bigger.
I wish you could see I did it for me, yes,
because I needed it, but also
for you, because you did too.
I have every right to be angry.
I do not owe you an explanation.
I will not apologise for expressing my pain.
it’s just a bus
just the underside of a bus
you already know this bus
the underside of the bus
you have been here seen it
felt it blistering metal hot
as it thunders overhead
it’s just a bus
just the underside of a bus
you already know this bus
as you lie crushed immobile
beneath the bus yes and under
the memory of hands paused
gentle before they pushed
Why should my mood have softened, when after all this time, you have not amended your ways towards me? Why should I redirect my anger, my frustration, my fury, when you have not redirected the course of your actions? Why should I moderate any aspect at all of my responses, when you have not changed the manner or extent of your willful mistreatment of me? And why should I give even the merest benefit of the doubt, when you have not given me even the tiniest margin for success?
You really haven't thought about this. You might have given it some thought, but you really haven't thought about it at all. You haven't considered the very many ways that all of the everythings you've done have interacted, how they have torn great strips, ripped thick bleeding slabs away from everything I have and everything I can do.
You really haven't thought about this. You haven't thought about how long I've been doing this, how deeply it has cut, and how long that wound has lain open, bleeding, oozing, weeping even after you have tired of the sport, looked away again and again, while everything I have leaks away.
You really haven't thought about this. You haven't thought about how long I can keep doing this. (I can't. I actually can not). You have stripped too much away and now there is nothing left, no fuel, no motivation, nothing left at all to keep me going. Not now, not tomorrow, not next week. Not ever. You have used me up, and now there is nothing left, not even to cross the finish line, not even to start.
You really haven't thought about this. You haven't considered the resource that I am, the value that I provide, not only to you but to the entire ecosystem in which you exist. You haven't thought about how, in tearing me to tatters, you are shredding your own advantage to nothing. You have used me until I am empty and you can use me no more.
I will not your travel your paths. I will not meet your people. I will not gift to them as I have so abundantly gifted to them with all of my everythings, this whole, astonishing expanse of time.
There is nothing you can do about this, until you do something about it. So do something about it, before I am so empty that I am gone.
That god forbid that made me first your slave
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure !
O, let me suffer, being at your beck,
Th' imprison'd absence of your liberty,
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check
Without accusing you of injury.
But where you list ; your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will ; to you it doth belong
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.
Shakespeare, Sonnets.
It is difficult for me to express in words the depths of the depression I am feeling. For as hard as things are for me now, the truth is they have been hard for a long, long time. Not weeks, not months, but years. And this difficulty compounds across the many spheres of life. It creates other barriers, erodes other joys. How many family celebrations have I missed? How many opportunities to see the people I love have passed, while I am unable to step beyond the tawdry limitations of my strangled budget? Tonight, I was unable to attend a dinner, which should have been a pleasant social respite, because I didn't have the wherewithal to pay for a cheap meal. That might have been acceptable twenty or thirty years ago, when I was first making my way in the world, but I have worked too hard and given too much for this to be acceptable, even for one more day. It has gone on for too long.
But there's a deeper level to my despair, and it's this. For every apparent loss, there has been a wound. And the wound comes from my awareness of the shared knowledgeable sentience of my plight. There is an entire community out there who has seen me struggling under the onslaught of multiple challenges and who have, invariably, turned away. Not just persons, but whole groups of people, many of whom have witnessed small affronts committed upon me but who know so much more about the more insidious actions that have been manifested against me. And some of those are people who told me they would have my back. Who said they asked much of me because they would give their own measure of service and sacrifice, and because their own efforts would ensure, if not my gain, then not my loss.
But loss is my constant companion. I wake up every day and before I am even out of bed I am confronted by the vast hole of everything that I was told, reassured, promised, even guaranteed, would be there for me. Not just a job but an income. Not just a house but a home. Not just a move but travel, to see my people and to holiday to all those places I've wanted to go but never ever been able to. Not promises, but people who care enough to turn up for me. Even the most basic amenity of healthcare, dental care, clothing, footwear, physical fitness, social interactions, are all utterly out of reach without the support that I should rightfully expect, and was promised. And this endangers my wellbeing, and therefore my safety.
But the deeper harm is the social harm. The constant absence of care from those who are well placed to give it but who do not, repeatedly. My life has become devoid of even the smallest acts of generosity or consideration, and replaced with a poorly mechanised series of transactional failures against me. I am exploited, daily, in every imaginable kind of interaction, and nothing has been given in return. Nothing.
Nothing is worth this kind of sustained deprivation. No cause is great enough or important enough to warrant this sustained assault on my basic material sustenance and wellbeing. Even this blog, this most private part of my existence is, like all other aspects of my existence, scrutinised for evidence of unturned screws that can still be set to squeezing even more from me, repaying my generosity with injury and insult in the manner calculated to cause me the greatest pain. No doubt, the tone of persecutory paranoia macerating my writing will be particularly satisfying to those of you who have measured your own successes by the extent of not just my failures, but the disproportionate (and utterly unconscionable) losses that I have incurred, personally, and every type of lasting damage that it has caused. Because it has caused lasting damage. For years. YEARS. And just because you only know about the more recent months, doesn't mean you're not responsible for the excessive damage that your own action, inaction and intolerable lack of compassion, dedication and basic human decency has wrought in compounding ways on top of every single thing that has already been done to me. If anything, the ease of your victimisation says more about my astonishing capacity to persevere than any kind of cunning or skill on your part.
Nothing is worth this. It has gone on for too long. I have given too much for too long and now my answer is no. No more. You will have nothing more from me until you have made good on all of your promises, past, present and future. And I'll get on with the daily business of surviving my depression, anguish, and the actual physical pain and illness that I have no money to get treated.
(P.S. Because, again, the pain is keeping me awake. Just so you know).
... if you hadn’t made all those promises.
... and if they hadn’t all turned out to be lies
... and if they weren’t all acts of betrayal
... costing my health, wealth and years of my life
It's Mental Health Week (somewhere in the world, anyway) and to mark the occasion, I have composed an essay, of sorts, based on my recent experiences. It's called
Being brief and powerful, it seemed like something I could print on coloured paper, and put in coloured envelopes, and leave in certain precincts for people to find, read and contemplate, by way of raising awareness of mental health issues, and the supports available to them. Like an anonymous act of public service. I once heard senior organisational leaders opining that such a thing would be a useful tool to create a sense of importance and urgency around the issues of mental health in their workplace, and to stimulate acts of individual and collective duty of care. My essay, of sorts, meets all the criteria. Good writing, tick. On topic, tick. Timeliness, tick. Personal angle, tick. Relevance to that work place, high, tick. Low cost to implement, tick.
But then I took a break and read it again. (Good mental health practice, right there). Did I mention it's based on my own recent experience? It is, to be honest, quite confronting. (Hence its potential impact). But do I want to be setting that free to work its chaotic magic in the hearts and minds of its audience? Now that it's written, it's always an option, I guess. But even with the careful language I have chosen and the deliberate structuring of its message, it is confronting. Potentially triggering. And I do not wish to stimulate any more suffering than that to which I have myself been exposed. That is part of my duty of care, my moral obligation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of others. I exercise that duty of care, it seems, even when it has not been exercised towards me.
So, please take a moment to appreciate the generosity of my motives in writing such a piece, and admire my restraint in not circulating it widely at this most pertinent time. Perhaps my discretion and good judgement will inspire others to consider what actions they can take to assist those members of their own communities who are suffering for want of basic actions of care and access to otherwise inaccessible support.
One of these days, my story will be told. I will tell it, or it will be told, by someone else who cares enough to give it voice. (Oh yes, there is someone who cares for me enough to do this small, huge thing). My story will be told, and its audience will be astonished, first, and probably disbelieving, until the incontrovertible evidence is made plain, as plain as my story when it is told, by me or by someone who cares. Because it is a plain story, there are no fantastical embellishments or wild speculations, merely a line of words, sometimes straight and sometimes meandering, just like the path I have trodden. These words, being plain, will carry all the weight of that which has occurred, and finding their audience, they will bloom as understanding. And the disbelief will be made into realisation, as the jolting shock of horrified comprehension ebbs away, until what is left is witness to this story, this plain story that is my story, told by me or someone who cares for me, and a sincere apology will be made.
there is no reason this action will yield any benefit -
there is no logic which explains its sense -
no method to justify the madness of the act -
but this ---
something must change -
something must give -
some sharp corner must be rounded -
some new scrutiny brought to bear -
(my silence does not grant consent) ---
(it never did) ---
-----
so why not this?
why not an action, taken once
and then undone, now done again? -
why not an action that serves no purpose
but this ---
to underline the empty space where
what should be is not
what should have been
has not been? ---
__________
there is no reason this action will yield any benefit -
there is no logic which explains its sense ---
no method justifies the madness of all that -
and this ---
its own absurb illogical folly -
imagines its own eloquence -
speaking its own plain truth -
to those who would not could not did not
(will not ?) -
listen ---
-----
therefore ---
this mute, implausible action
voices the only reply possible
to an impossible situation ---
the impossible reply ---
_________
and in this perfect expression
of this imperfect circumstance
it becomes ---
reasonable -
beneficial -
logical -
sensible -
methodical -
and justified ---
---
so why not this?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: unusual action, entirely justified
