Not a Popular Opinion

I’m culturally appropriating.

You’re rating my passion

through the eyes of a career gold digger

looking for meaning unwritten,

themes and motifs and meta imagery.

I say what I see.

I’m on catchphrase constantly.

I’m good, but I’m not the one.

I’m frustrated by what I've become.

<sigh> narcissistic ramblings…

This child that went brambling

Now sips prosecco listening

To pseudo-socialist expressions espoused

By folk who don’t want to work.

“The system’s not working”

But you use it to support you.

You don’t earn any wages but bemoan the ways things are

while you profit from the sweat of others who are.

Thing is, I agree, things aren't the way they should be

but I find it hard to take you seriously.

You see, when I drag my bones out of bed

and pay all my bills and work ‘til I’m dead

You’re still sleeping.

You’re reaping your meager existence

from the aches in my muscles.

And honestly, I know there are some who can’t work,

They’re too sick, they’re too hurt by the weight of their age

But when you rage that your cheques not through

That the world’s not fair,

That it owes something to you

I can’t help it.

I’d like to give the help that you’ve received

To someone who knows what it’s like to really need.

A refugee.

Someone who wants to work,

Wants to support their family.

It’s not a popular opinion, I won’t earn any friends with this.

And honestly, there are some who will call me a hypocrite.

I claimed money when I first had my son.

Was made redundant when they noticed my bump.

It’s not legal, but neither was the war in Iraq

And we all know that that situation’s coming back.

Zero hour contracts, 50 hour working weeks

Flush the weak from a system that rewards the wolves.

There’s no paid overtime, we’re on Victorian rules.

Now, here I sit eating quince and cardamom jam

And my old punk friends wonder who I think I am

With my fancy little accent and shoes that have no holes

Now there’s middle class flab on my working class bones.

But my ideals haven’t changed, I still think we should protect

The vulnerable among us, give our elders our respect.

Speak to me statistically, romance me with the cold hard facts.

I don’t want to hear recycled bigotry, especially if it’s Murdoch Media backed.

I believe in the freedom of education.

I believe in the N.H.S

I believe that if you tell one generation

They’re doomed, you’re dooming all the rest.

I believe in the power of discussion.

I believe in empathy.

I believe that the kindness of strangers

Shows truthful humanity.

The amount of tax unpaid is now 30 times the money claimed

And yet the papers tell us that it’s benefits to blame

For why the cupboards empty and the pension pot is bare.

They tell that the CEOs don’t have enough to share.

Now.

I don’t work in finance.

I failed economics.

But I did work in promotions and

I know my demographics.

These pigeon holes we box us in, through judgement and research

And the one you’ve chosen causes my causes to be smirched.

And objectively I know there are so damn few of you

That the cost of it is almost worth forking out

Just so the folk who want to work

Don’t have to deal with you!

So when I’m fighting for the corner of the ones who need the aid

I would appreciate it greatly if out of my way you stayed.

You can pass you life in this way, you’ll find no judgment in me,

But please do consider if this help you really need.

Or if it would be better going to a refugee.

Someone who knows what it’s like to really need.

It’s not a popular opinion.

I won’t earn any friends with this.

But in this situation,

Empathy wouldn’t go amiss.