Monday, March 21, 2016

Unemployed



Unemployed

I live by society’s grace,
and in disgrace by their revulsion of me.
No one hires my kind, an experienced person in life.
“Get a minimum wage job, or live on the street…”

It’s not for the lack of trying,
that emails remain unanswered, phone stays silent.
If only someone took a chance,
I might not die of embarrassment,
when asked what I do.

I have all the skills required,
except the language of choice,
I’m in my mid fifties,
Am I too old to?

I paid for my own training,
when recession took the jobs away.
Electrical engineering, technologist,
in a lean manufacturing boom.

I paid to get ahead,
but soon those jobs left too,
and took my first marriage,
my family, my sanity, my health.

Ostracized by siblings,
frowned upon by acquaintance,
they’re no friends,
their chorus of condemnation parades me.

“Look at him, he doesn’t work.”
“I don’t like his lifestyle” they say.
when all I want is to support my family.
I’m not asking for much…

Maybe I can create my own work,
try to evolve once again to build that damn dream,
maybe help out other’s, so they don’t have to go through hell,
when asked, “what do you do?”

Hard work never pays off when all the avenues are blocked,
…and that endless condemnation…

I don’t like this world,
they would prefer I leave,
well just wait a little longer,
while I try to give my family a fighting chance.

My little girl understands, she’s learning French.
Though she need not defend me from emotional scars,
her battles lay ahead, when ignorance again, rears its head,
and people say, “Look at her, she doesn’t work.”
----------------------------


About this Poem: What it feels like, to be an unemployed Anglophone in Montreal Quebec.

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