Member-only story
The Man Who Cried Wealth
A Poem
you didn’t realize, did you,
that the sky was falling
till your neighbors cried out
and the apocalypse left you unscathed —
how lucky to know such fortune
your brothers played the lottery
with other people’s money
and you sipped from glasses
embedded with diamonds
while the poor banged on the doors
your sisters knew the game too,
and how they fawned over men
who had dollar signs in their eyes
and hands that would have killed
for the next chance to climb higher
your parents might have known better,
but they chose the ones in office —
all those men who knew the greatest scam
was lying and smiling at the same time,
anything to charm you into deals with devils
you can look to the stars all you want
while you try to start homes on other planets —
anything to keep you from accepting
the knowledge that you’ll die like any other man,
alone, with no earthly material to take with you
