My relationship with wealth

Sometimes I revisit my old Tumblr account to see how much I’ve changed.

I wrote this poem 11 years ago:

I loved you in that tiny space
when my eyes widened over the little things
I loved you through that winter cold
when you wouldn’t even hold my hand
I loved you when you were nothing
but you were everything to me
and I watched you work into the AM
to become who you are now
which is a little bit funny
because who you are now
means nothing to me

I had loved an orphan once, and even now I am not sure whether I wanted to love him to completeness or whether I simply loved him completely.

Maybe there is no difference when you are that young.

We shared a small apartment the size of a hallway and called it enough. We split meals meant for one. Once, we laughed so hard he dislocated his shoulder and somehow even that became a good memory. We did not have much, but I remember being happy in a way that did not require much evidence.

We both came from broken homes, though mine had been padded by the love of my mother and grandmother. I think I believed love could repair anything if you gave enough of it.

For a while, I watched him work late into the night. I watched him become.

Then I watched money arrive.

At first, quietly. Then everywhere.

The apartment changed. The people around him changed. The hunger changed.

Years later, I found out he had been living another life because a woman I did not know posted herself inside a room I knew by heart.

I remember staring at the photograph longer than I should have. But by then, I had already been hollowed out enough that shock required more feeling than I had left.

So I left quietly. I think I have always left quietly.

No overturned glasses. No screaming in hallways. No cinematic ending worthy of the years before it. Just the strange sound of a door closing on a life you once thought you would grow old inside.

He did not let go as easily. I tell myself it’s because I loved him when he had nothing.

And somewhere in the years that followed, money became a little haunted for me.

I began to associate wealth with appetite. Not abundance, but the inability to stop wanting. A larger home. A better table. A prettier woman. Another room after you had already been given one.

I knew this was unfair. I just did not know how deeply I believed it.

For a long time, I distrusted rich men before they had done anything wrong. I assumed excess eventually taught people to confuse access with entitlement, that once someone learned they could have more, they would eventually begin wondering whether they should.

The irony is that I became obsessed with money too.

I wanted enough of my own that no one’s wealth could ever seduce me into staying. Enough that I would never have to confuse being provided for with being loved. Enough that if I chose someone, I could know with certainty that I had chosen the person and not the life surrounding him.

Maybe that was what remained of the girl in the tiny apartment.

She had already learned that she could be happy splitting one meal between two people. She just wanted to make sure she never forgot it.