The banality of financial insecurity

What is the use of art imitating life, only to
reflect the sameness of existence and too-rare joys
the quiet persistent desperation of people who
Lose second jobs, and then manage without them
And do without health insurance
And car insurance
And new tyres
And fresh food
And who know how many beds are available at the closest shelter
if this place to sleep falls through.
(It's none.)
Who cope so well but are so consumed with the minutiae of surviving
that there is nothing left with which to be remarkable.

Who thinks about the best order of words
to describe a midnight flit from unpaid rent,
and whatever asininity can't fit in the bag you have right now, when
the constant gnawing hunger of bad nutrition
and aging too soon from bad skin, teeth, joints
and untreated pain
from the labour demanded as payment and penance for the right to exist
claims all of the attention that would be for education.
Where can we go now but nowhere.

It's difficult to be evocative
(yet not of pity)
about surroundings that are anything but an unspoiled scenic wonderland,
places where making a living is as hard,
and the texture of life as drab, as the carpet
installed in suburban rental apartments
of any other place.

And
a good time is smoking pot with the neighbors,
with a soda and maybe some chocolate
And, if you're really lucky, no fight
with someone you know you love
about money later that night.

All of us, though,living this life
have a deep-buried promise of mayhem
mayhem of of some final, awful kind
of breaking from confines, and through to liberty.

Because someday it will get too much
to fail to answer, when asked
"Did you live the life you wanted?"
Could you even ask for it?"

...