MIDDLE CLASS

Poem by Mirabel

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I am a living being: strangely pulse-bodied, 
But from where else comes the heart
 
Only a half-remembered thought, 
No, just turn away, let the feelings go 
 
Oh, they won't leave, so we may as well grieve
Everything I thought I had in me
flees to a better country, moves to a newer home
 
Furnished, short term rentals, late night check in
and out of your state of existence:
it's only accidental. 
 
Don't hold onto the staircase. 
 
Don't stay up too late. 
 
You'll never make it upstairs, 
you'll take this weight to your grave. But the cutlery
drawer speaks to me, my neighbour laughs, 
but this joke's not for me. 
 
Downstairs, the same old beat,
repeat on repeat. 
 
Now, clean up after your timid feet. 
 
It's time to see what the poets have been writing 
about, it's time to forget another day. But don't linger
in the corridor, there's deep laughter there. 
 
I know you wish you could know it, but when you look
you tend to stare. 
 
I'm tired of upper-class neighbours
and working-class despair. I'm always setting the table
but the feast's never there. I'm cleaning the glasses
we never bring out, the forks we've so closely held. 
 
Oh, the markets going to crash, they say
it'll take years to make repair.
 
We can knock ourselves off, but the chessboard
demands to be played. 
 
So hold my hand, darling, I know
The shame makes you want to glare
 
but we haven't lost anything that was ours,
because nothing was ever really there.

About the Writer

Mirabel, holds a B.A. in English Literature and Linguistics from McGill University. Mirabel's work has appeared in places such as carte blanche, Dream Pop, and Déraciné Magazine, among others. Presently, Mirabel edits poetry and prose for Persephone’s Daughters, a literary magazine devoted to survivors of abuse. Her debut collection, DREAM FRAGMENTS, came out in fall 2020 from Montreal's Cactus Press. Keep up with Mirabel's writing on Twitter @akmokha.