Do you understand?

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?