Poem for Poetry Thursday

The Secret

This is a metaphor--imagine
the quickening fury of a rainstorm
and you without an umbrella.
Think of the chaos it causes, scampering about
to lean the lawn chairs against the house.
The barbecue spoiled, the last gasp
of summer fun ruined.
It's the fear of the sun disappearing
into bureaucratic darkness.
You know the feeling: being in debt,
too much month at the end of the money.
This is the secret you carry,
kept alive by all that's unpopular in you,
rejecting wisdom, say,
your dad's voice in your head
telling you not to be "all dollars and no sense,"
that thank-god-it's-Friday-
oh-god-it's-Monday-and-
what-do-I-do-in-between feeling.
It becomes what you protect the most
alongside the house with its collections of things
and those secret journal entries written in longhand,
in the tiniest type you can manage.
The feeling so palpable
you just want to break something,
turn the place upside down
and tell no one.
Fragile as a leaf,
your silence becomes a kind of truth.
When you speak to your lover,
your closest friend
you leave your impoverished heart
out of the conversation.

Happy Poetry Thursday!

I've wanted to write this poem for a while. Through reading posts by other bloggers on other sites, I wanted to write about money as a poem topic. We all have our own unique views of it, but a lot of us are mired in debt. We don't handle money well as a society. And I firmly believe that credit card companies have convinced us all not to use cash and pay exorbitant amounts of interest to buy stuff we don't need. It's hard to resist with advertisements that tell us "Life Takes Visa."

B*llsh*t!

I understand what it means to be in debt, but I also know what it means to see a light at the end of the tunnel (and know it's not an oncoming train!). It's funny how most people would rather talk about their sex lives instead of how much they earn. Money is the last taboo.

So I think this poem qualifies as falling into the realm of the Poetry Thursday prompt. The phrase "too much month at the end of the money" is a saying used by financial expert Dave Ramsey. Also, I post a new poem weekly outside of my office door, usually from versedaily.com. By having poetry in the office, I found out a coworkers reads Sharon Olds. Very cool!

Now, I'd also like to try an experiment. Since the poem I wrote is called "The Secret," I want to hear a secret from you. In a separate post, I want you to tell me a secret, but post anonymously. At some point, I'll post anonymously, too. By the end of the weekend, I'd like to have a running list of secrets that I'll post next week.