Learning humility at the unemployment office

Learning at the unemployment office
Humility
Not an easy medicine to take
Even surrounded by others it is
Lonely
There may be peers but no colleagues
Embarrassment
Because even if they say
“everybody’s been there”, truth is
They haven’t
Not in your skin, not at this moment
Not in your circumstances
So you hear there is a lot of work out there
None for you
Right here, right now
You liberate, incorporate, “do your own thing”
Easy
Eases your pain
Corporate life isn’t for you
Best to be your own boss
Laugh at the peasants who must grovel
At the hands of their employers

Significance
There is none and don’t be fooled
By the fools who have fooled themselves
It’s not clever or smart or face-saving or
Ego-boosting
If you don’t pay your bills
Society flushes you
So you hold on, save yourself
Some do it by faith
Some do it with addiction
Some by reveling in their failure
Some make it, others don’t
We all know this
We hear the stories of rugged individuals
Pulling up bootstraps, taking stock
What of the ones who can’t make it above the
Watermark
Where are their souls?
Who owns their fate?
What we do to ourselves exceeds
All that others can do to us

Trapped, frozen
A place in our mind where we believe
There are no windows, no doors
No photos on the wall
No motivational poster urging us on
To the next level
Peers, not colleagues
More akin to a leper colony than
An oasis or refuge
For those cast aside
It’s only for a moment, really,
It’s just hard to see from this POV.

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