Cloth

 I cannot hold up anything but this —-

—- this cloth of my unhappiness, stitched through with the suffering silence of these past years. The pattern is insensensible, unrecognisable, as it follows the curves of all of my moments of confusion. Why have you allowed this to be done to me? For four years now, following upon an eternity of anticipation which has been rent into a mockery of tattered hopes. And why, in particular, have you kept me poor? Why have you refused me the petty cash of a cheap-paying job when you have also refused me the generous rewards of my efforts, rendered diligently? And with each week, month, year that passes, unpaid, I am denied access to those places and those activities that should rightly occur in this expanse of unemployed time. And it is no comfort to me to see the easy riches of your lives, mocking the stultifying limitations of my own life: all the places I cannot go, all the things I cannot do, because I do not have the ready cash, not even the wherewithal for basic needs like dental care, optometry, rehabilitation of my unhealed injuries. To live this once is an insult, to live it over and over again with each month and year that passes is an assault, no less than the many assaults and financial privations that my abuser carried out. And none of my words here are an exaggeration. These are simple facts, rendered plainly, and they speak for themselves. I have been deceived, it seems, deliberately lied to, by those who claim the very highest standards of conduct and excellence, and that, too, is stitched into the cloth of my despair. There is no warmth or shelter afforded by this pitiful garment, but I hold it up anyway, so that all may gaze on it, and understand that these wrongs must be righted, without delay. I must be paid that which I am owed. I must be afforded the same generous lifestyle standards that you give yourselves. Monetary insufficiency is a blunt weapon and its use on me must cease immediately. Social excision is inexcusable save against those individuals that have offended against others by the worst crimes, so it must not be levelled at me, whose conduct has been flawless. And to you who have claimed the shadowy protections of your own roles as an excuse to sit idly by while I have been treated with this level of financial disdain, this cloth is your reminder of your responsibilities towards me. I have embroidered each of your promises onto its surface, and I carry them with me everyday, until they have been fulfilled.